Hegel's Lectures on the History of Philosophy: Volume 3 (of 3)

Section Two

THE SCHOLASTIC PHILOSOPHY 37

A. Relationship of the Scholastic Philosophy to Christianity 45

B. General Historical Points of View 60

1. The Building up of Dogmas on Metaphysical Grounds 61 a. Anselm 61 b. Abelard 67

2. Methodical Representation of the Doctrinal System of the Church 68 a. Peter Lombard 69 b. Thomas Aquinas 71 c. John Duns Scotus 72

3. Acquaintanceship with Aristotelian Writings 73 a. Alexander of Hales 73 b. Albertus Magnus 75

4. Opposition between Realism and Nominalism 77 a. Roscelinus 78 b. Walter of Mortagne 80 c. William Occam 82 d. Buridan 85

5. Formal Dialectic 86 a. Julian, Archbishop of Toledo 87 b. Paschasius Radbertus 88

6. Mystics 91 a. John Charlier 91 b. Raymundus of Sabunde 91 c. Roger Bacon 92 d. Raymundus Lullus 92

C. General Standpoint of the Scholastics 94

Section Three

REVIVAL OF THE SCIENCES 108

A. Study of the Ancients 109

1. Pomponatius 111

2. Bessarion, Ficinus, Picus 112

3. Gassendi, Lipsius, Reuchlin, Helmont 112

4. Ciceronian Popular Philosophy 113

B. Certain Attempts in Philosophy 115

1. Cardanus 116

2. Campanella 119

3. Bruno 119

4. Vanini 137

5. Petrus Ramus 143

C. The Reformation 146

Part Three

MODERN PHILOSOPHY

INTRODUCTION 157

SECTION ONE

MODERN PHILOSOPHY IN ITS FIRST STATEMENT 170

A. Bacon 170

B. Jacob Boehme 188

SECTION TWO

PERIOD OF THE THINKING UNDERSTANDING 217

CHAPTER I.—THE METAPHYSICS OF THE UNDERSTANDING 220

A. First Division 220

1. Descartes 220

2. Spinoza 252

3. Malebranche 290

B. Second Division 295

1. Locke 295

2. Hugo Grotius 313

3. Thomas Hobbes 315

4. Cudworth, Clarke, Wollaston 319

5. Puffendorf 321

6. Newton 322

C. Third Division 325

1. Leibnitz 325

2. Wolff 348

3. German Popular Philosophy 356

Chapter Ii.—Transition Period 360

A. Idealism and Scepticism 363

1. Berkeley 364

2. Hume 369

B. Scottish Philosophy 375

1. Thomas Reid 376

2. James Beattie 377

3. James Oswald 377

4. Dugald Stewart 378

C. French Philosophy 379

1. The Negative Aspect 388

2. The Positive Aspect 392 a. Materialism 393 b. Robinet 394

3. Idea of a Concrete Universal Unity 397 a. Opposition between Sensation and Thought 398 b. Montesquieu 399 c. Helvetius 400 d. Rousseau 400

D. The German Illumination 403

Section Three

RECENT GERMAN PHILOSOPHY 409

A. Jacobi 410

B. Kant 423

C. Fichte 479

1. The First Principles of Fichte’s Philosophy 481

2. Fichte’s System in a Re-constituted Form 505

3. The More Important of the Followers of Fichte 506 a. Friedrich von Schlegel 507 b. Schleiermacher 508 c. Novalis 510 d. Fries, Bouterweck, Krug 510

D. Schelling 512

E. Final Result 545

INDEX 555

CORRIGENDA IN VOLS. I. AND II. 570

Part Two

PHILOSOPHY OF THE MIDDLE AGES

INTRODUCTION

The first period embraces a space of one thousand years—from Thales, 550 B.C., to Proclus, who died 485 A.D., and until the disappearance of pagan philosophy as an outward institution, 529 A.D. The second period extends to the sixteenth century, and thus again embraces a thousand years, to pass over which we must provide ourselves with seven-leagued boots. While Philosophy has hitherto found its place in the religion of the heathen, from this time on it has its sphere within the Christian world; for Arabians and Jews have only to be noticed in an external and historic way.

1. Through the Neo-Platonic philosophy we have come into quite familiar acquaintance with the Idea of Christianity, as the new religion which has entered into the world. For the Neo-Platonic philosophy has as its essential principle the fact that the Absolute is determined as spirit in a concrete way, that God is not a mere conception. Although the Absolute is Thought, it must, in order to be true, be concrete in itself and not abstract; in what we have just seen we have, then, the first appearance of the absolutely existent spirit. But in spite of their profound and true speculation, the Neo-Platonists still had not proved their doctrine that the Trinity is the truth, for there is lacking to it the form of inward necessity. The Neo-Platonists begin from the One that determines itself, that sets a limit to itself from which the determinate proceeds; this, however, is itself an immediate method of presentation, and it is this that makes such philosophers as Plotinus and Proclus so tiresome. Undoubtedly dialectic considerations enter in, in which the opposites which are conceived as absolute are shown to be null; but this dialectic is not methodical, but occurs only disconnectedly. The principle of retroversion and comprehension found with the Neo-Platonists is that of substantiality generally, but because subjectivity is lacking, this idea of Spirit is deficient in one moment, the moment of actuality, of the point which draws all moments into one, and which thereby becomes immediate unity, universality, and Being. To them spirit is thus not individual spirit; and this deficiency is made good through Christianity, in which spirit is found as actual, present spirit, immediately existent in the world here and now, and the absolute spirit is known in the immediate present as man.

In order to grasp and apply the Idea of Christianity, the philosophic Idea of which we have already spoken in connection with the Neo-Platonists must have been comprehended for itself; but within Christianity the basis of Philosophy is that in man has sprung up the consciousness of the truth, or of spirit in and for itself, and then that man requires to participate in this truth. Man must be qualified to have this truth present to him; he must further be convinced of this possibility. This is the absolute demand and necessity; the consciousness must be arrived at that this alone is true. The first point of interest in the Christian religion thus is that the content of the Idea should be revealed to man; more particularly that the unity of the divine and human nature should come to the consciousness of man, and that, indeed, on the one hand as an implicitly existent unity, and, on the other, in actuality as worship. The Christian life signifies that the culminating point of subjectivity is made familiar with this conception, the individual himself is laid claim to, is made worthy of attaining on his own account to this unity, which is to make himself worthy of the Spirit of God—Grace, as it is called—dwelling in him. Hence the doctrine of reconciliation is that God is known as reconciling Himself with the world, i.e. as we have seen in the Neo-Platonic philosophy, that He particularizes Himself and does not remain abstract. Not external nature alone, but the whole world pertains to the particular; above all must human individuality know itself in God. The interest of the subject is itself involved, and here it plays an essential rôle in order that God may be realized and may realize Himself in the consciousness of individuals who are spirit and implicitly free. Thus through the process these accomplish that reconciliation in themselves, actualize their freedom; that is to say, they attain to the consciousness of heaven upon earth, the elevation of man to God. Thus the true intellectual world is not a beyond, but the so-called finite is an element in it, and no division exists between this side and that. The real concrete in regard to the absolute Idea is the knowing of the mundane, the ‘other’ in God, as implicitly divine, as universal, as the world of intellect, as having its root in God, but only the root. In God man is accepted only in his truth, and not in his immediacy, and thus this doctrine is not what we call Pantheism, for that leaves the immediate just as it is. Man then has himself to accomplish the process of reconciliation in himself in order to attain to his truth. We have thus seen that man possesses the determination and attributes of God as the first begotten son, Adam Kadmon, the first man; we may call this unity the concrete Idea, which, however, is still only implicit.

But the fact that because man is capable of the divine, the identity of the divine and human nature must likewise be present for him, has in an immediate way become known to him in Christ, as one in whom the divine and human nature are implicitly one. In the world what has come to pass is that the Absolute has been revealed as the concrete, and, further, not only in thought in a general way as intelligible world, but because it has in itself proceeded to its ultimate point of intensity. Thus it is an actual self, an “I,” the absolute universal, the concrete universal, that is God; and also the absolute opposite of this determination, the clearly finite as it exists in space and time, but this finite determined in unity with the eternal as self. The Absolute comprehended as concrete, the unity of these two absolutely different determinations, is the true God; each of them is abstract, and either of them taken by itself is thus not the true God. The fact that the concrete is thus known to men in this perfection as God, brings about the whole revolution that has taken place in the world’s history. The Trinity is thereby not only present in conception, which would not yet constitute the perfect concrete, but actuality is perfectly united to it. In the consciousness of the world it has consequently broken in upon men that the Absolute has attained to this “culminating point” of immediate actuality, as Proclus says; and that is the manifestation of Christianity. The Greeks were anthropomorphic, their gods were humanly constituted; but the deficiency in them is that they were not anthropomorphic enough. Or rather the Greek religion is on the one hand too much, and, on the other hand, too little anthropomorphic—too much, because immediate qualities, forms, actions, are taken up into the divine; too little, because man is not divine as man, but only as a far-away form and not as ‘this,’ and subjective man.

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