G.W.F. Hegel

Idealist System
The Painter and His Picture
 The reality is a teleological process through contradictions and crises. A painter paints a picture. What’s happen here? Through this work he knows himself. The work is an alienation of his inner life. So, the reality is both the spirit (painter) and the nature (picture). Nature is the externalization of the inner life of the spirit. It is the alienated spirit (the picture is also the alienated mind of the painter).
The Dialectics
 The dialectics is a three-steps-dynamic of all thing. It is called thesis, antithesis and synthesis.
 We can understand it as a process in which the mind alienated itself into the outer world. This alienation of mind is then solved through reconciliation of the world and its producer or the mind.
 Note: In this reconciliation Hegel follows Schelling’s Philosophy of Identity (Schelling thinks that there is no difference between consciousness and nature)
Aufhebung
 The synthesis is a process of reconciliation through Aufhebung, i.e:

 1. To receive some elements of thesis and antithesis
 2. To eliminate the other elements
 3. To lift up into a higher level (aufgehoben)

 Synthesis is not mere combination, but a qualitative new form. (Like Child is a synthetical form of father and mother)
Das Absolute
 Hegel’s philosophical standpoint is “das Absolute” or the absolute. He takes this starting point from Schelling. The absolute has no difference in itself between subject and object. It is the whole reality that include subject and object.
 But it develops in time and space.
The Big Three
 The Idea (internal)
 The Nature (external)
 The Spirit (internal-external)
Three Steps of Development of Reality [or the absolute]
 The absolute develops in three steps like the development of human person:
 1. The absolute in itself [das Absolute an sich] or the Idea – comparable with the child that has not yet recognized himself
 2. The absolute for itself [das Absolute fuer sich] or the nature – comparable with the adult that knows the world outside but still searches himself
 3. The absolute for and in itself [das Abasolute an und fuer sich] or the spirit – comparable with an old man that knows himself through the world
The Absolute as Idea (subjective moment)
 Hegel’s system begins with “logic”. Logic is the subjective moment of the absolute or idea. There are three moments here:
 1. Being (Sein) - external
 2. Essence (Wesen) – internal
 3. Concept (Begriff) – external-internal
The Absolute as Nature (objective moment)
 The second part of Hegel’s System is Philosophy of Nature
 1. Physics - material
 2. Mechanics - movement
 3. Organics - life

The Absolute as Spirit (absolute moment)
 The third and final part of Hegel’s System is Philosophy of Spirit
 1. Subjective spirit: Phenomenology of Spirit
 2. Objective spirit: Philosophy of Right
 3. Absolute Spirit: Art, Religion and Philosophy
An Example: Hegel’s Philosophy of Right
 The objective spirit consists in three steps or aspects, i.e:
 1. Abstract Right: property right
 2. Morality: intention, guilt
 3. Ethical Life (Sittlichkeit), that consists of three moments:
 A. Family : natural substance (more than sex)
 B. Civil Society: contract and individualism
 C. State: more than economics or contract
Sittlicher Staat
 Hegel’s State is a sacral and religious state. The citizens obey the law without alienation, i.e. freely, because there is reconciliation between abstract right (thesis) and morality (antithesis) in form of ethical life of the state (synthesis).
The Three Moment is Synchronic
 We must regard the three moment of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right not as chronological chain or diachronic, but as synchronic: They are aspects of the same political reality, i.e.: the capitalist state. The modern state can be seen as [1] a collection of families; [2] as a civil society; or as [3] liberal state.