From Socrates to Sartre by T.Z. Lavine

Author:T.Z. Lavine [Lavine, T.Z.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-79357-7
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2011-05-04T04:00:00+00:00

Hegel’s Metaphysics: Absolute Idealism

Here we have identified Hegel’s theory of reality, the metaphysical theory of absolute idealism. As we have already seen, idealism is the name of the type of metaphysical theory which claims that reality has the characteristics of mind or thought, that reality is rational, logical, or spiritual. Absolute idealism is a subtype of idealism.

1. Reality as Totality of Conceptual Truth. Absolute idealism is the claim that reality is rational, conceptual totality, that reality is an absolute mind, or the mind of God, an integrated and total structure of conceptual truths.

2. Reality as Absolute Mind. For Hegel reality is absolute mind, consisting of the totality of conceptual truth, which reveals itself in all areas of human experience and knowledge, from logic to physics to biology, from history and politics to art, religion, and philosophy.

3. “The Real is the Rational and the Rational Is the Real”. Reality is this vast structure of rational concepts. Like Plato, Hegel claims that the rational, the concept the idea—this is what is real. In Hegel’s own famous words: “The real is the rational and the rational is the real.” Hegel fills out in rich and concrete detail this vision of the absolute, of absolute spirit, of a God who is total reality and truth, who reveals Himself to our finite minds in every area of human knowledge. You may want to respond to Hegel by agreeing that empiricism is shallow, and that Hegel’s absolute idealism offers what the human spirit craves to understand: the meaning of human experience, and the totality of truth to be found in the arts, sciences, history, religion, politics. You may also find yourself agreeing with Hegel about the nature of reality, because when you want to understand the reality that you have to confront in your job, in your family, in the political tensions that greet you with the daily news, you find that you have to think about these things, you have to penetrate them to find what they mean, you have to understand the psychological or social or political concepts that are involved. You don’t solve these problems of your life by getting a batch of Humean sense impressions.

4. The Rational Is the Existent Object “More Deeply Understood.” Hegel is right, you may say, the real is the rational. But what about existent, the factual objects of the world, the vast realms of physical and organic nature, and human societies? Have all these forms of existence no reality for Hegel? Is only the rational, the conceptual real? Hegel’s answer in his own words is that the reality of the rational concepts “is not another object than the existence, it is the same object more deeply understood.” Absolute idealism claims to penetrate existence to find the rational, conceptual truth, which is its core or kernel.

Here you can see an important distinction between Plato’s theory of concepts or ideas and Hegel’s theory of concepts. For Plato the eternal and immutable ideas exist separately and independently in their own intelligible realm of being, as distinct from the merely sensible realm of things in flux.

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