But look, your answer got zero votes. So, we basically all agreed your take was trash. That means it’s wrong, because there isn't any other truth besides what we decided on together. I mean, it doesn't make sense for a bad answer to be true—if it were actually true, it would have been a good one. And if it were good, we definitely would've voted for it and agreed it was right.
Look, I just laid it all out for you. Let me try one more time.
If we decide that the truth is whatever we collectively agree on, then anyone who pushes back against that agreement is automatically wrong by default—since there isn't any other version of the truth besides the one we settled on.
But look: we all basically "agreed" that your answer was total garbage—like, we collectively gave it zero stars—yet you’re still out here claiming it’s the "most accurate." How does that even work? I guess what you're saying is that one person—you, for example—can just be right even when they're going against the consensus of everyone else here?
James Lee77 said:Nah. I’m just saying Hegel definitely knew about the fate of Aristotle from Stagira, whose unpublished lectures basically turned into one of the absolute pillars of philosophy—you know, metaphysics. So, I guess it’s pretty likely he wouldn't be surprised if his own lecture notes—covering everything from his philosophy of religion to his aesthetics, history, and the Encyclopedia—were seen as a core part of his whole philosophical project. Honestly, that’s pretty much how everyone else views Hegel, except maybe you.
My bad, I didn't slip up because I forgot about those famous lectures on the history of philosophy that were published after he died, but more because the Encyclopedia of Philosophical Science was actually printed while Hegel was still alive. Here’s a bit from the start of that book, which Hegel had released in three editions during his lifetime:
She does indeed have her objects initially in common with religion. Both have truth as their object truth, and in the highest sense—in that God is the truth and he alone is the truth.
Sie hat zwar ihre Gegenstände zunächst mit der Religion gemeinschaftlich. Beide haben die Wahrheit zu ihrem Gegenstande, und zwar im höchsten Sinne – in dem, daß Gott die Wahrheit und er allein die Wahrheit ist.
Anyway, I guess people can interpret that however they want.
Amanda Jackson5 said:Alright, let's get to the heart of what you're actually getting at here. Are you suggesting that Hegel somehow provided a definitive proof for the existence of God? Honestly, looking through the books he actually put out and the way his entire philosophical system is structured, there isn't much of a mystery regarding his stance on religion or where he fits it all into his framework.
Nah. I’m just saying Hegel definitely knew about the fate of Aristotle from Stagira, whose unpublished lectures basically turned into one of the absolute pillars of philosophy—you know, metaphysics. So, I guess it’s pretty likely he wouldn't be surprised if his own lecture notes—covering everything from his philosophy of religion to his aesthetics, history, and the Encyclopedia—were seen as a core part of his whole philosophical project. Honestly, that’s pretty much how everyone else views Hegel, except maybe you.
Amanda Jackson5 said:Look, I never said they should be discarded; I just suggested putting them into perspective. It’s a bit like teaching high schoolers theology—you’d expect the discourse to be scaled down accordingly. Trying to pull some sort of definitive Hegelian apology for religion out of those messy, unfinished lecture notes is, to put it mildly, intellectually dishonest and biased—which is funny, considering that’s exactly what you’re accusing me of doing. Anyone who has actually spent time with his major works—whether they lean left or right—can see pretty clearly that Hegel could be interpreted in a dozen different ways, but he certainly wasn't some religious apologist.
But wait, it wasn't like he was teaching some high school religion class. These were philosophy of religion lectures at the university in Washington, D.C.—which was basically the most important university back then. It was actually pretty common for professors from other departments to just show up and sit in on those philosophy lectures. So, yeah, he was lecturing to the smartest minds in Europe at the time, not some kids in a classroom. These talks happened in 1821, 1824, 1827, and 1831. Those last ones? Well, he was actually the university president by then (starting in 1830), so I don't think anyone was gonna come up to him and say, "Hey, go teach some teenagers about religion."
Sandra Murphy33 said:That just proves he wasn't a (Christian) believer—he was an researcher. He sought out theosophists, mystics, and even traveled to the East...
A true believer doesn't research; they believe. To them, investigation is synonymous with doubt.
Given the Hegelian view of God as a process (rather than a person or a being), and the fact that he was investigating being itself rather than "God," we would probably label him an agnostic by modern standards. In that era, such a category didn't exist, so people today love to simply slap the "believer" label on him. They transplant facts from one century to another without accounting for the massive shifts in context or the zeitgeist.
If willfully ignoring those distinctions isn't bias, I don't know what is.
I mean, I guess every believer deals with doubt at some point. If you didn't have those questions, maybe it wouldn't even be about faith anymore—it would just be about facts and knowledge. Even when you look at all that research from theosophists, mystics, or folks out in the East, it all kind of points back to that one piece of advice from Pavlov for Christians: “Test everything to see if it’s from God, and then hold on to whatever is good.” Quincy:
Since he’s got his own whole thing going on regarding God as... I guess it’s all just part of the process. (not just about a person or a being) the whole fact that he wasn't even looking for God, but rather... battleI mean, if we were living in today's world, maybe we’d actually just call Hegel an agnostic. I guess that's how it would go down now.
I don't know about that specific fact, honestly. If someone claims philosophy is basically theology and that philosophizing is just a way to serve God, I guess we might call them a panentheist nowadays. Maybe.
So I was reading through this. We're basically debating your whole revolutionary take on Hegel—the idea that we should just toss out everything he didn't publish while he was actually alive.
Amanda Jackson5 said:I actually know what Hegel thought about God and the divine, mostly because I’ve sat down with his logic science. You clearly haven't. Honestly, that book is a far more useful resource for understanding his views than any of those random notes he left behind for his theology classes.
I mean, anyone who’s actually dug into Logic Science probably agrees with you. It’s not like there are these different camps of left-Hegelians or right-Hegelians or whatever.
Was he just talking out of his ass in those lectures? And were those philosophy of history talks total nonsense too—you know, that whole bit about history moving toward this ever-growing consciousness of freedom and all that? I mean, he didn't even write the book on it. Same deal with aesthetics?
It’s not just that Hegel claimed to be a believer; he actually was. Like, in his downtime, he’d hang out with that theosophist Baader just to geek out over Meister Eckhart. I mean, there's no way he wouldn't have lost his job because of that, right?
Gerald Jackson48 said:Don't sweat it too much. The left wing of Hegelianism has its own way of looking at Hegel and God, while the right wing has theirs. They rarely see eye to eye. You've just got your own take based on what you read, and that's perfectly fine.
After Hegel passed away, the focus shifted from political philosophy to intense debates over the philosophy of religion. People were arguing about theistic ideas regarding God, personal immortality, and Christ's divinity, which basically split the school into left and right wings. His direct students, known as the Old Hegelians, wanted to bridge philosophically grounded theology with orthodox religious doctrine. On the other side, you had the younger generation of philosophers who didn't follow Hegel's lead, called the Young Hegelians. d. F. Strauss and B. Bauer pushed a pantheistic view of God, while L. Feuerbach took an atheist turn and developed a critique of religion based on anthropology. These "left" and "right" labels really stem from the political and social stances held back in the 1840s.
The left wing also has this whole specific idea about tolerance: "Emancipatory tolerance would essentially mean being intolerant toward right-wing movements while tolerating those from the left." (Marcuse) Since we aren't exactly "emancipatorily tolerant"—we’re just regular old tolerant—maybe we should just deal with the left-wing Hegelian anxiety over words starting with G.
You could honestly read multi-layered sentences like these in a million different ways (though I guess you should probably try not to overcomplicate things too much while you're at it):
"God is the one and only subject of philosophy. ... Philosophy is therefore theology, and engaging with it—or rather, within it—is already, in itself, a service to God." (G. W. F. H., from his own handwritten notes for his lectures on the philosophy of religion)
"God revealed Himself through the Christian religion." (G. W. F. H., lectures on the philosophy of history, based on the edition by J. Hoffmeister)
The whole debate about what makes a life "good" was basically Plato's bread and butter, which is why we’re still obsessing over it today. I guess my take is pretty old-school too: living well means acting out of what you actually know through love, and then learning more by actually doing things. To me, that means there are a few big ways people mess it up. Either you just stop caring and fall into a pit of negativity; or, you aren't even thinking for yourself and just blindly follow whatever traditions or social norms are floating around; or—and this one happens a lot—you get stuck in pure intellectual curiosity where you learn stuff but never actually let it change how you live.