Phenomenology of Spirit

“In keeping with this demand is the strenuous, almost over-zealous and frenzied effort to tear men away from their preoccupation with the sensuous, from their ordinary, private affairs, and to direct their gaze to the stars.”

Hegel asserts that it is a mistake for philosophers to focus only on the divine and to ignore conscious experience. Absolute truth can be found in The Evolution of Truth and Consciousness, as cognition moves from one tier to the next. Hegel’s views of the divine are complex and have been the subject of much debate. As a German idealist, he sought to reconcile faith and reason. However, in the Preface, Hegel asserts that philosophers use the divine to avoid developing a comprehensive system of science which marries the known and the unknown.

“The True is the whole. But the whole is nothing other than the essence consummating itself through its development.”

This statement represents the core of Hegel’s concept of absolute knowing. Truth can be found through the examination of consciousness and its connection to the external world, or object. However, Hegel is not asserting that truth is concrete or final. Instead, it is constantly evolving and changing.

“The commonest way in which we deceive either ourselves or others about understanding is by assuming something as familiar, and accepting it on that account; with all its pros and cons, such knowing never gets anywhere, and it knows not why.”

Although Hegel begins by suggesting that he will not follow in the philosophical tradition of explaining how his work fits into the canon of philosophical thought or refuting specific arguments, his theory does challenge innatism or the priori, popular epistemological principles. In this passage, Hegel asserts that it is not enough to simply accept ideas because they are familiar or because they feel innate.