The episode explores Karl Leonhard Reinhold’s philosophical response to Immanuel Kant and how Reinhold's work laid the groundwork for Johann Gottlieb Fichte and later German idealism.

Reinhold admired Kant’s ambition to place philosophy on a firm scientific foundation but believed Kant lacked a single, undeniable starting point. To address this, Reinhold proposed the principle of consciousness—the inseparability of consciousness and representation—as a foundational fact from which all knowledge could be derived. He emphasized a distinction between empirical and pure representations, aiming to ground not only empirical knowledge but also metaphysics and a priori understanding in this fundamental act of representation.

This effort responded to critiques like Maimon's, who questioned how synthetic a priori judgments bridge thought and experience. Reinhold’s emphasis on a self-evident foundation inspired Fichte, who advanced the idea with his concept of the pure I as the ultimate ground of knowledge.

Even Hegel later acknowledged Reinhold’s significance in initiating the quest for an absolute beginning in philosophy. The episode ends by reflecting on the relevance of foundational thinking across disciplines and encourages listeners to consider their own starting points for understanding the world.

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"Dare to use your own reason" - Immanuel Kant

Hegel's teacher was Fichte. How did Hegel deal, however, with the systematic philosophy of his predecessor? He thought that Fichte's solutions to the problems in Kant's philosophy were less than satisfactory.
In this Deep Dive, I am prompting (literally) the AI speakers to discuss the relationship between Hegel and Fichte, focusing in particular on the notion of absolute self-consciousness. Did Fichte actually allow the non-I to stand for reality? Or is reality and the objective world just a "position," the result of an action by the Ego? 
Fichte builds on Kant by positioning the ‘I’ as the basis of all knowledge. This absolute ‘I’ establishes itself and the outside world, which he considers a fundamental act. Hegel criticized Fichte because he considered the ‘I’ too isolated and therefore still attached to the finite. According to Hegel, Fichte did not fully resolve the split between subject and object, limiting his system to reflective thought without true union.Hegel considered Fichte’s approach to nature as instrumental and saw this as a shortcoming. He introduces his speculative philosophy, which strives for a holistic approach to reality. Although he recognizes that Fichte made progress, he saw his system as too subjective and insufficiently connected to objective reality.The dialogue emphasizes that these philosophical debates still influence contemporary discussions about psychology, cognitive science and AI.

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"Dare to use your own reason" - Immanuel Kant

Deep Dive into par. 553 of the Encyclopedia with side remarks about the Antigone.

Here are key aspects of Hegel's view on Absolute Spirit as presented in the Encyclopedia:

• The Notion Realized: The notion of mind finds its reality within mind itself. For this reality to align with the consciousness of the absolute Idea, implicitly free intelligence must be liberated to its notion, allowing its actuality to become a fitting vehicle. Subjective and Objective Spirit are understood as the pathway through which this aspect of reality or existence matures.

• Self-Centred and Self-Returning Identity: Absolute Mind is characterized as a self-centred identity that is always returning and ever returned into itself4 . As the one and universal substance, it exists as Spirit by discerning itself into a self and a consciousness for which it serves as the substance.

• Manifestation in Forms: Absolute Spirit manifests itself in various forms, most notably Art, Revealed Religion, and Philosophy. These are considered different ways in which the absolute truth comes to consciousness.

• Religion as a Sphere: Religion is broadly designated as this supreme sphere of Absolute Mind. It is seen as issuing from both the subject and objectively from the absolute spirit within its community. The subjective consciousness within this sphere involves a process leading to spiritual liberation and reconciliation.

• Philosophy as the Highest Form: Philosophy is presented as the unity of Art and Religion. It goes beyond the vision-method of art and the representational and mediational aspects of religion by unifying them into a simple spiritual vision and raising them to self-conscious thought8 . In philosophy, the diverse elements of the content are cognized as necessary, and this necessity is understood as free. Philosophy is described as the self-thinking Idea and the truth aware of itself, representing the logical system as a spiritual principle realized in concrete content.

•Self-Knowing Reason: The Idea of philosophy has self-knowing reason, the absolutely universal, as its middle term. This reason divides itself into Mind and Nature, ultimately leading to the eternal Idea engendering and enjoying itself as absolute Mind.
In summary, Hegel's Absolute Spirit, as portrayed in the Encyclopedia, is the fully realized and self-conscious stage of Mind, manifesting in distinct yet interconnected forms, with philosophy representing its highest and most comprehensive expression as self-knowing reason.


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"Dare to use your own reason" - Immanuel Kant

A Deep Dive conversation about the Absolute Spirit providing an overview.

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"Dare to use your own reason" - Immanuel Kant

Hegel’s philosophical discourse on the absolute spirit represents a culmination of his exploration of consciousness, reality, and freedom. This concept serves as the apex of his system, embodying the unity between individual consciousness (the subjective spirit) and collective structures (the objective spirit). In the text, Hegel delves into the nature of the absolute spirit, emphasizing its eternal self-awareness, its manifestations, and its essential role in bridging faith and knowledge.
The absolute spirit is described as the ultimate reality, where the spirit achieves complete identity with itself. In Hegel’s view, it reconciles all opposites—subjective and objective, finite and infinite, particular and universal—into a unified whole. This unity is not static but dynamic; it is eternal, self-contained, and self-returning, reflecting a process of continuous realization and self-recognition. Through this process, the absolute spirit attains true freedom, which Hegel identifies as the essence of spirit. Freedom here is not mere independence, but the ability to fully comprehend and actualize one’s own nature.
To Hegel, the development of the spirit is a journey, with the absolute spirit as its final destination. The path begins with subjective spirit, which encompasses individual self-consciousness and thought. It progresses to objective spirit, manifested in societal norms, ethical life, and laws. Finally, the journey culminates in the absolute spirit—a unity of both, realized through three key forms: art, religion, and philosophy. Each of these serves as a distinct expression of the absolute spirit:
Art represents the sensuous manifestation of beauty and truth, providing an aesthetic encounter with the divine.
Religion embodies the communal and spiritual connection between humanity and the ultimate reality, offering both subjective faith and objective truth.
Philosophy, the highest form, articulates the spirit’s knowledge of itself through rational thought and pure understanding.
Religion plays a crucial role in Hegel’s framework. He portrays it as the highest sphere where the absolute spirit becomes tangible in human experience. It is both subjective—originating within individuals—and objective—emanating from the absolute spirit itself. This duality underscores the interconnectedness of faith and knowledge. Hegel rejects the idea of opposition between faith and knowledge; instead, he asserts that faith is a specific form of knowledge, a mode of understanding truth that aligns with the spirit’s realization. This perspective challenges the notion of religion as a purely subjective or irrational experience, positioning it as a vital manifestation of the absolute spirit.
Hegel’s critique of contemporary approaches to religion in the text highlights a shift in focus from God as an objective being to the subjective dimension of faith. While he acknowledges this trend, he underscores the importance of recognizing God as spirit within the community. This collective understanding ensures that religion remains a reflection of truth and not merely an individual or emotional experience.
In conclusion, Hegel’s concept of the absolute spirit embodies the ultimate realization of freedom, truth, and unity. Through its manifestations in art, religion, and philosophy, the absolute spirit reconciles the subjective and objective dimensions of human experience, achieving complete self-awareness. Its emphasis on the interrelation of faith and knowledge provides profound insights into the nature of spirit, illuminating the path to understanding human existence and the divine.


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"Dare to use your own reason" - Immanuel Kant

For the full ext go here: the relationship between art and reality a hegelian survey

Summary:
The relationship between art and reality is a dynamic interplay, as described by Hegel, who views art as a dialectical process. Art both expresses and transforms reality, serving as a medium for the sensory manifestation of spiritual truths. It is more than mere imitation, involving the artist's imagination and creativity to shape natural forms into expressions of the spirit. The human form is regarded as the highest medium for this expression.

Hegel outlines a historical progression in art through symbolic, classical, and romantic forms. Symbolic art struggles to embody the idea appropriately, while classical art achieves a harmonious embodiment of the idea in human form but remains limited in depicting infinite spirit. Romantic art, on the other hand, acknowledges the inadequacy of sensory forms to fully express infinite subjectivity, emphasizing inner subjectivity and contingency.

Art, according to Hegel, reflects and helps us comprehend reality, offering beauty as the sensory manifestation of the idea and elevating consciousness. Although it lacks the reflective clarity of philosophy, art provides a truthful representation of reality, revealing deeper spiritual truths. Over time, as the spirit advances in self-knowledge, art transitions from being the highest expression of the spirit to gaining autonomy, with religion and philosophy taking precedence in expressing higher ideas.

The role of the artist is central, as they are inspired creators who embody inner necessity and reveal profound truths, often transcending their own intentions. Ultimately, as consciousness evolves, so too does art's role and significance, continually transforming our understanding of reality and the spirit.

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"Dare to use your own reason" - Immanuel Kant

Caputo's perverse core of Hegel revolves around the idea of a productive perversion of the absolute. This involves pushing Hegel's ideas to conclusions he might not have explicitly intended, thereby opening doors for radical theology. Key aspects of Caputo's perverse core of Hegel:

Radical Theology as a Result: Caputo views Hegel as a springboard for radical theology, offering a way to think theologically without relying on the traditional metaphysics of separate worlds. Hegel's approach involves considering the world as a horizon and thinking of God within it.

Beyond Hegel's Intentions: It means following Hegel where he did not mean to lead, marching to a drum he did not quite beat, taking up a cause he did not quite advocate, and so to pursue Hegelian perversatility to its felicitous end. Caputo suggests repeating Hegel by exploring the possibilities within his work that are unfinished and still becoming. 

Event vs. World: Caputo replaces Hegel's concept of God being-in-itself with the relationship between the event and the world. The event is what stirs within what happens, while the world is everything that happens, marked by traces of divine events.

Incomplete Project: Caputo argues that the perversion launched by Hegel is incomplete and needs to be pushed further. He seeks a perverse core in Hegel that goes beyond the notion of the Absolute subtly steering human passions.

Beyond Subject and Substance: The perverse core of Hegel involves conceiving a world where the absolute is neither substance nor subject, or where these are merely provisional effects standing in for more boundless virtualities.

A-telic History: Caputo suggests that history should be seen as a radically a-telic and contingent process, without a steadying teleological hand. Instead of a teleological movement, history is marked by change, chance, and fortunes.

Human Responsibility: Hegel's shift implies that humans become responsible for completing what is missing in the body of God. The weakness of God goes hand in hand with the responsibility of humankind. Events and Intensities: The absolute is not a logos or power but an a-logical sense or intensity of existence. The divine is not providence but excitation, exaltation, and rejoicing in moments of intensified flow.

God as Body and Soul of the World: By conceiving the absolute as the substance and subject of the world, Hegel opened the door to seeing God as the body and soul of the world. The world beats with the heart of God and pulsates under a divine impulse.

Prayer: Caputo suggests a perversatility of prayer, where materialism is the answer to God's prayers, with God soliciting humans and humans praying for the heart to respond.

Legacy: Hegel opened up the space to consider God as an event occurring in matter, space, and time.



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"Dare to use your own reason" - Immanuel Kant

Paragraph 564 of Hegel's Encyclopedia begins to discuss what Hegel refers to as revealed religion. It is part of the concept of religion, meaning the religion whose content is the absolute spirit, that it is also revealed, and that means revealed by God. This is intrinsic to the definition of the concept of religion. It is inconceivable that a religion whose content is the absolute spirit can be understood in any other way than as revealed. Moreover, knowledge in general, which is what makes substance and reality into spirit, involves a relation to the other as other; this is a principle that determines itself. It is thoroughly a manifestation of itself. It determines itself and expresses itself as such, which implies a relationship between the infinite and the finite spirit..
Theologically formulated, spirit is only spirit when it exists for spirit. Thus, God can only be spirit when God exists for humanity, for another spirit. In absolute religion, the absolute spirit is present, not expressing abstract elements of its existence as in art-religion but expressing itself as such. In absolute religion, we find the absolute spirit that must be known and can be known by the finite human spirit.
There is an ancient idea of spirit wherein God or spirit is nemesis or fate. The deity is then merely a force acting upon the world, an absolute force capable of destroying all that is high and elevated. This conception of God was challenged by philosophy when Plato and Aristotle argued that God does not know jealousy. A similar response can be given to modern individuals who claim there can be no certainty about God's existence. Such claims are merely assertions about God—that He cannot be known with certainty—assertions that are nothing more than that.
From the perspective of religion itself, which we call revealed religion, such an assertion is impossible. If we have a religion in which God is not revealed, in which He has not revealed Himself, then we are left with nothing but ignorance about what God is; God becomes an empty idea. However, if we take the word God seriously within religion, then everything we know about Him has also been taught by Him—that is to say, revealed by Him.
If the word spirit has any meaning at all, it signifies at least the revelation of spirit by itself. What more can be said about this? In this paragraph of the Encyclopedia, it concerns the concept of absolute religion. Within this concept, terms like knowledge and self-revelation are central.
Several concepts can help us understand this idea of absolute religion more clearly. Firstly, there is the revelation by God. The true religion that has as its subject the absolute spirit must indeed be viewed as a revealed religion. Consequently, the idea of knowledge arises because awareness of this revelation constitutes knowledge of God. However, this knowledge actively determines itself; it seeks to express itself and become reality; it is not merely an inner suspicion or knowing.
The manifestation of this knowledge is inherent in the knowledge itself. The absolute spirit also manifests in absolute religion; no abstract components are shown but rather the absolute spirit presents itself as a whole.
We have already mentioned that God's spirit becomes manifest for spirit. The essence of spirit lies precisely in how it relates to others. God's spirit can only be spirit if it is accessible and comprehensible to another spirit.


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"Dare to use your own reason" - Immanuel Kant

Hegel’s transition from being (Sein) to nothing (Nichts) in the Science of Logic is the first dialectical movement of his system and exemplifies his method of immanent critique. Here’s a step-by-step explanation of this transition:1. Starting with Pure Being

• Pure being is the most abstract, immediate, and indeterminate concept. It lacks all specificity: it is not “being this or that” but being as such, stripped of any qualities, determinations, or content.
• Hegel argues that such a concept is empty. Since there is nothing to distinguish it, it is equivalent to nothing (Nichts). For example, to say “being is…” without adding any predicate collapses into meaninglessness.

2. The Identity of Being and Nothing

• Both being and nothing are indeterminate immediacy: they share the same lack of content. This makes them identical in their abstractness. However, they are also distinct because being is posited as “pure affirmation,” while nothing is “pure negation.”
• Hegel writes: “Pure Being and pure Nothing are, therefore, the same. What is the truth is neither Being nor Nothing, but that Being does not pass over but has passed over into Nothing, and Nothing into Being.”
  • Their “truth” lies not in their static opposition but in their movement into one another.

3. The Emergence of Becoming (Werden)

• The mutual transition between being and nothing is captured in the concept of becoming (Werden). Becoming is the unity of being and nothing, where both are preserved as moments:
  • Coming-to-be (Entstehen): The movement from nothing to being.
  • *Ceasing-to-be (Vergehen): The movement from being to nothing.
• Becoming is the first concrete category in the Logic because it introduces dynamism and process, overcoming the abstract immediacy of being and nothing.

4. Why the Transition is Necessary

• Immanent Contradiction: Pure being, as entirely indeterminate, negates itself. Its lack of content makes it indistinguishable from nothing, forcing a dialectical reversal.
• Hegel’s Method: The transition is not imposed externally but arises from the self-sublation (Aufhebung) of the concepts themselves. Being and nothing are not static opposites but moments in thought’s self-unfolding.
• Logical Necessity: For Hegel, the Logic begins with the simplest category (being) and allows its internal contradictions to generate richer concepts. This mirrors the structure of reality as a self-determining totality.

5. Key Philosophical Implications

• Rejection of Static Metaphysics: Traditional metaphysics treats being as a stable foundation (e.g., Parmenides’ “being is, non-being is not”). Hegel undermines this by showing that being, when rigorously analyzed, dissolves into nothing and becomes dynamic.
• The Role of Negation: The transition demonstrates that negation is not external to being but inherent to it. This establishes the dialectical principle that determinacy arises through negation (e.g., something is what it is by not being its other).
• Foundation for the Entire Logic: The being-nothing-becoming triad sets the pattern for all subsequent categories (e.g., determinate being, essence, concept), which emerge through similar dialectical transitions.

6. Why This Matters for Hegel’s System

• The transition from being to nothing is not merely a logical curiosity but reflects Hegel’s core thesis: thought and reality are dialectical processes. Stability arises only through the interplay of opposing moments.
• This movement also ties back to the conclusion of the Phenomenology of Spirit: absolute knowing, which recognizes that truth is the self-moving concept, prepares the ground for the Logic’s beginning with being. The Phenomenology justifies the standpoint from which being can be grasped as mediated immediacy.

In Summary:The transition from being to nothing is the first instance of Hegel’s dialectic, revealing that:

1. Indeterminacy collapses into its opposite.
2. Negation is constitutive of determinacy.
3. Truth lies in process (becoming) rather than static categories.

This movement exemplifies Hegel’s rejection of fixed binaries and his insistence that reality is a dynamic, self-mediating totality.

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"Dare to use your own reason" - Immanuel Kant

The Fourfold - a concept of the third period of Heidegger's thinking - can be put into the perspective of Hegel's dialectic phenomenology. The more static nature of the Fourfold is contrasted with the dynamic dialectics of hegel in this brief criticism of Heidegger's idea. 

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"Dare to use your own reason" - Immanuel Kant