Document Type : Research Paper

Author

• Daniel Dal Monte

Rowan University

Abstract

Contemporary Hegel scholarship either defends a theological metaphysics in which history is a teleological unfolding of cosmic Geist; or, the evolution of Geist represents the absolutization of human subjectivity, which undergoes a Bildung that prescinds from any reliance on metaphysical givens. The dilemma is between presenting Hegel as an absolute monist that is outmoded in light of modernity’s skepticism towards a teleology of history; or, of reducing Hegel to the terms of modernity, as defending the absolute self-grounding of the human subject, in history without ontology. I argue that co-opting Hegel for modernity is a mistake. The post-Kantian interpretation of Hegel, that rejects any metaphysics of the absolute, leaves the human subject in a state of alienation that the dialectic process in Hegel is supposed to resolve. I argue that PKI’s account of the self-grounding subject is too similar to absolute freedom that Hegel views as a dangerous fruit of the Enlightenment. Absolute freedom, having relegated God to deistic irrelevance, and stripped nature of any telos, seeks to make its own categories sovereign over those of reality.

Keywords

• Hegel
• absolute freedom
• Geist
• Enlightenment
• dystopia

Main Subjects

• philosophy