Ep. 394: Hegel on Faith vs. The Enlightenment (Part Two)
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What is Hegel’s diagnosis of the conflict between Enlightenment reason and faith?
You're listening to the Partially Examined Life, Episode 394, Part Two. We have been discussing Hegel's Phenomenology, the Enlightenment, and we're now up to the section The Struggle of Enlightenment with Superstition. So I think the direction that we are going here. is that the Enlightenment's view of faith, right? Faith sub E, Is believing unsupported propositions, maybe unsupported propositions about aspects, characteristics of God, about historical events, miracles that have taken place, and these all end up being classified by pure insight, right? The the voice of the enlightenment as mere superstition. But he's going to end up saying that actually pure insight does not, the Enlightenment does not understand faith, that faith is not.
In fact, this was a mistake of the whole section of pure consciousness, right? That the overall thing that gave birth to the two sides, pure insight and faith. Just the fact that that is a retreat from the actual physical social world. means it's going to falsify what faith is, right? If faith is mere thoughts about God, well, that's wrong. Faith is a matter of comportment that the faithful will have toward God. And in fact, they find themselves in God. They define themselves in terms of God and correctly according to Hegel. So that is how ultimately we're going to get out of this why the Enlightenment had an incomplete understanding of the kind of thing that it was criticizing. So faith sub E does go down, but faith sub H, right, Hegel's view of faith will end up being, you know, where he's ultimately going in the book.
Yeah. I just feel Compelled to note that this aspect of you just mentioned faith, enlightenment will get faith right effectively. Is that the an intrinsic characteristic of the unity, the solving of Kant's problem, or his Kant's failure to not know the thing in itself is the way in which you get all the way to undoubted truth or pick your way of talking. Talking about it, that you are aligned with universe. The universe is aligned with you. You reflecting the truth of the world in all of your actions and all of your being. So this is a universe in which an endpoint in which there's no doubt. There is no shadow of a doubt. There isn't a sliver of it because once you have that, everything will fall apart.
So it's a kind of utopia.
So in five forty one we get this right, what he calls a sharper negativity than skepticism and and idealism in the Enlightenment. And it's right sharper because it it declares self consciousness to be absolute. And the self, you know, as we've already said, it treats the self-consciousness as it's if really as if it's the essence of all reality. This is what pure insight does. And in doing so, right, all of empirical reality in a way is is what we can know about it is reducible to its self consciousness and its categories. But what it leaves out is all the content, right? The stuff that Ficked said you had to posit. And the content really belongs on the side of the things themselves, including God. So faith, says Hegel, content falls on faith's side.
It's what, you know, is durable being. And pure insight starts out empty without content.
Is there a way of interpreting the pure insight as the embodiment of enlightenment reason without explicit reference to Kant's notion of the categories? Just that the reason, you know, on any, you know, if you're Locke, if you're Hume, if you're any of those guys, Cartesian ego. Yes, thinks that it can range over everything. So in that sense, everything is its playground. It's, you know, without having to I just wonder if we have to be full on conscience for this to make sense at all.
So no, this is because he's saying over and over again this very confusing thing that it pure insight thinks everything is reducible to self consciousness. And readers are not gonna understand what that means. I mean listeners are not gonna understand what that means. Otherwise it's just baffling. It's just gibberish. Why would Hegel says say that the Enlightenment is trying to reduce everything to self consciousness?
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is Hegel’s diagnosis of the conflict between Enlightenment reason and faith?
0:07–6:03
2
How does Hegel distinguish pure insight from faith in the Phenomenology?
6:03–12:48
3
Why does Hegel claim that the Enlightenment’s view of faith is incomplete?
12:48–19:32
4
What role do Kant’s categories and apperception play in Hegel’s critique of pure insight?
19:32–25:00
5
How does Hegel describe the relationship between the priesthood, despotism, and the masses?
25:00–31:14
6
Why does Hegel argue that faith is a communal, behavioral engagement rather than mere belief?
31:14–37:34
7
What is the connection between Hegel’s pure insight, the spread of terror, and the need for moral constraints?
37:34–44:48
8
How does the discussion lead to Hegel’s solution for reconciling faith, reason, and the state?
44:48–53:31
Speakers
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