No one will actually read this
I wrote this paper a while ago for a philosophy class. Anyone who is generally interested in philosophy, has a particular interest in Hegel, or the Deconstruction trend of the 1980s might find it enjoyable. Also, I attempt to present my interpretation of the death of metaphysics in post-modern thought.
Hegel “Deconstructed”:
An Analysis of Hegel’s Vorstellungen and Begriff
“Today nobody will stop with faith; they all go further.
It would perhaps be rash to inquire where to . . .”
- Søren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling
The German philosopher, G.W.F. Hegel changed the very nature of philosophy by the development of perhaps the most comprehensive and ambitious system of thought ever produced. No one has ever attempted a project like Hegel’s since the publication of his Phenomenology of Spirit in which he lays out the basic ideas of his philosophy. Hegel represents the epitome of Enlightenment thought. As such, his philosophy is a call to the principles of science and logic over religious faith. Hegel believes that the truth contained in religious beliefs is merely symbolic and can be appropriated into philosophical form. Hegel writes in the Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion, “Philosophy has been reproached with setting itself above religion; this, however, is false as an actual matter of fact . . . it sets itself merely above the form of faith, the content is the same in both cases.” The movement from religious thinking into philosophical thinking is critical to Hegel’s system. Therefore, it is necessary to investigate the validity of such a transition of forms. Hegel sees religious faith, most importantly in Christianity, as a stepping stone towards a more complete understanding. He claims that the truth contained in Christianity is apparent only in the form of “picture-thinking” which prevents full realization of that truth. Thus, “picture-thinking” is “overcome” in the more appropriate form of Notions, purely philosophical concepts. The methodology employed by Hegel to move from “picture-thinking” to Notions is examined in the subsequent work of the French philosopher and literary critic, Jacques Derrida, whose writing brings into question some of the foundational assumptions problematic to the Hegelian process. This assault yields remarkable consequences for the status of metaphysics in philosophy. But before this can be addressed, Hegel’s project needs to be explicated further to see how he gets to this idea of Notions.
The entire Phenomenology of Spirit is an account of philosophical consciousness becoming aware of itself as self-consciousness. This is the story of the coming of Spirit (Geist) to self-consciousness. Spirit is the metaphysical entity which encompasses all reality, analogous to the universal brotherhood, spirit, of mankind. According to Hegel, all of human history is the progression of Spirit to an understanding of itself, namely Spirit becoming aware of itself as Spirit. Each epoch of history witnesses a higher level of understanding of consciousness. Thus, the end of history is the moment when Spirit becomes fully self-conscious because it has thus reached the highest level of understanding. Spirit fully understands itself, seeing itself as the whole of reality. Human history, then, is the story of Spirit.
The coming of Spirit to self-consciousness is finally realized in Christianity. Hegel writes,
The absolute Spirit has given itself implicitly the shape of self-consciousness, and therefore has also given it for its consciousness - this now appears as the belief of the world that Spirit is immediately present as a self-conscious Being, i.e. as an actual man, that the believer is immediately certain of Spirit, sees, feels, and hears this divinity . . . . this God is sensuously and directly beheld as a Self, as an actual individual man; only so is this God self-consciousness. (Hegel pg. 458-459 par 758)
In other words, during the course of history, the belief in the union between absolute Spirit and man will arise. This man is Jesus Christ, the union between God and man. Thus, human history, being the realization of Spirit, culminates in Christianity. Hegel writes that all prior shapes of Spirit were merely progressing to this state. Christianity is therefore the highest form of the Unhappy Consciousness. All other forms could only express partial truths, but in Christianity, all truth is expressed. This truth is that the human finite self-consciousness and the Absolute are united in one person, Jesus Christ. This truth of the union between finite and absolute is expressed in the immediacy, being the person of Christ.
The form of truth contained in Christianity is not explicit; it is contained in a representational form. Hegel calls this form of picture-thinking, Vorstellungen. Christianity is an important stage in human history because it finally expresses all of truth but only in story. This metaphorical thinking makes the realization of the truth expressed in Christianity in the Here and Now impossible.
This form of picture-thinking constitutes the specific mode in which Spirit, in this community, becomes aware of itself. This form is not yet Spirit’s self consciousness that has advanced to its Notion qua Notion: the mediation is still incomplete. This combination of Being and Thought is, therefore, defective in that spiritual Being is still burdened with an unreconciled split into a Here and a Beyond. The content is the true content, but all its moments, when placed in the medium of picture-thinking, have the character of being uncomprehended . . . . (Hegel pg. 463 par 765)
Hegel argues that religious picture-thinking is an imperfect form and needs to be overcome for the represented truth in Christianity to be expressed for the universal. This truth must be properly expressed in the form of Notions, Begriff. In order to understand this move of Aufhebung, lifting up, it is important to investigate what Hegel sees as the inadequacies of mere picture-thinking.
Despite having a true content, religious Vorstellungen is an invalid form for Hegel because the very form itself makes immediate realization of that truth impossible. The inadequacy for Hegel lies in metaphors. Thinking only in terms of images, these images lie outside of consciousness. They are distinct from that consciousness. Hegel writes:
What is pictured or figuratively conceived, what immediately is, has, as such, the form of being something other than consciousness; but a Notion is also something that immediately is, and this distinction, in so far as it is present in consciousness itself, is its determinate content; but since this content is at the same time a content grasped in thought, consciousness remains immediately aware of its unity with this determinate and distinct being, not, as in the case of a picture-thought, where consciousness still has specially to bear in mind that this is its picture-thought; on the contrary, the Notion is for me straightway my Notion. (Hegel p 120 para 197)
To put it simply, the truth contained in the story of Christianity is not explicitly present to self-consciousness because in picture-thinking, consciousness is placed at a distance from the characters in the story. Truth is grasped as representation, which is not as explicit as immediate presence. However, if truth is understood in conceptual form, its content is immediately grasped in consciousness. Thus the problem is a problem of remoteness; I am not Jesus Christ. According to Hegel, the fallacy of Christianity is individuality. As long as the union between absolute and finite exist only in the picture-thought of Jesus Christ, it cannot exist for me, being distinct from Jesus in time and space. Hegel writes:
Looking at this more closely, Spirit, in the immediacy of self-consciousness, is this individual self-consciousness, and so is an antithesis to the universal self-consciousness. It is an exclusive One or unit which has the still unresolved form of a sensuous ‘other’ for the consciousness for which it is immediately present. This ‘other’ does not as yet know Spirit as its own, i.e. Spirit as an individual Self is not yet equally the universal Self, the Self of everyone. (Hegel pg 461-462 par 762)
The problem with picture-thinking is the apparent alien reality of the truth in Jesus Christ. Any consciousness that is not him, will not realize the union of the absolute and the finite. The problem is also temporal. As long as the incarnation is understood as a single event, it must necessarily pass into history. With the death of the person of Jesus, the union of God and man also passes out of existence, and becomes inaccessible. Thus the form of Vorstellungen is inadequate and fails to fully satisfy man, who cannot yet achieve the synthesis pictorially apparent in Jesus Christ.
Another shortcoming of the form of picture-thinking, is its insistence of a beyond. In religious thought, the satisfaction and perfection of man is placed in heaven and can only be achieved after death. The Unhappy Consciousness can only be made completely happy by the final separation of the soul from the body. For Hegel, this is inadequate because it places the solution somewhere in the beyond. This is absurd because when one dies, consciousness ceases to exist. Accordingly, the solution must be reached in the Here and Now.
This unity of essence and the Self having been implicitly achieved, consciousness, too, still has this picture-thought of its reconciliation, but as a picture-thought. It obtains satisfaction by externally attaching to its pure negativity the positive meaning of the unity of itself with the essential Being; its satisfaction thus itself remains burdened with the antithesis of a beyond. Its own reconciliation therefore enters its consciousness as something distant, as something in the distant future . . . (Hegel p478 para 787)
Christianity promises the union of God and man in the afterlife. To Hegel, this demonstrates the failure of Vorstellungen. Instead of a deferral to some beyond, Hegel insists on the possibility of the immediate realization of the satisfaction of man.
In order to make the truth contained in the content of Christianity available in the Here and Now, Hegel must secularize Christian theology and overcome mere picture-thinking. He writes, “The content of this picture-thinking is absolute Spirit; and all that now remains to be done is to supersede this mere form” (pg 479 par 788). Christian theology revealed its inadequacy by deferring the unity of absolute and finite to the realm of the Beyond. In doing so, it conceals the possibility of immediate communion with the absolute Spirit by stories and myth. Hegel’s solution is to raise up picture-thinking to the higher level of understanding, Notions.
Before the true content can also receive its true form for consciousness, a higher formative development of consciousness is necessary; it must raise its intuition of absolute Substance into the Notion . . . . (Hegel pg 463 par 765)
Notions, Begriff, are the appropriate form for the truth revealed pictorially in Christian theology. Notions are philosophical concepts which express truth through pure rationality, Logos. The task of philosophy is to mediate the truth that is present in the story of the incarnation.
Hence for Hegel, faith is important as a stage toward higher understanding, but it is not the final form. Faith must be raised up and reinterpreted to the form of concepts. In Notions, the same truth contained in the story of Christianity, namely the immediacy of the Absolute Spirit, is understood in conceptual form. Notions are purely structures of thought, which is one with consciousness. Thus the problem of separation is overcome because concepts are immediately my own; therefore, their truth is my truth. In philosophical Begriff all of the problems of religious Vorstellungen are overcome. The truth is mediated in a higher level of understanding that makes the realization of the absolute possible to my immediate consciousness. In other words, the truth explicitly rendered into concepts is the realization that the union between absolute and finite is possible in every man as soon as he realizes he is part of Spirit. The political philosopher, Alexandre Kojève, summarizes Hegel’s argument:
Now, according to Hegel, one can realize the Christian anthropological ideal (which he accepts in full) only by “overcoming” the Christian theology: Christian Man can really become what he would like to be only by becoming a man without God - or, if you will, a God-Man. He must realize in himself what at first he thought was realized in his God. To be really Christian, he himself must become Christ. (Kojève pg 67)
When picture-thinking is overcome and raised up to the level of Notions, here we find the true meaning of the story: we are all God-man. Immediately, my own consciousness and the infinite, absolute are one when I realize myself as Spirit. This is what Hegel means by Absolute Knowing:
This last shape of Spirit - the Spirit which at the same time gives its complete and true content the form of the Self and thereby realizes its Notion as remaining in its Notion in this realization - this is absolute knowing; it is Spirit that knows itself in the shape of Spirit, or a comprehensive knowing [in terms if the Notion]. (Hegel p485 para 798)
In Absolute Knowing, the Unhappy Consciousness is fully satisfied by being universally recognized by all, as all are Spirit. This realization of perfect satisfaction must occur in the perfect State which absolves the master and slave distinction. In the perfect State, all men are Citizens, universally recognized in brotherly love. With the satisfaction of all human desires in the perfect State, history, human progress, must end as there is nowhere left to progress. Thus the citizen with absolute knowledge, at the end of History, is also the ideal "Wise Man." By attaining wisdom in its entirety, Hegel ends the quest of philosophy, inaugurated by Socrates and Plato, as the search for wisdom. Thus in the Hegelian System, metaphysics is culminated, its ends reached, its fulfillment accomplished.
Hegel's project fully flushed out, a critical examination remains to be made about whether this move from the form of religious thinking to the form of philosophical thinking is complete or even possible. What does it really mean to simply rescue Christianity from its form? The Aufhebung, the overcoming, of religious picture-thinking into proper philosophical concepts hinges upon language. But what is a completely philosophical language appropriate for the explication of Notions? What is the proper form for a philosophical text? In searching for answers to these questions, several problematic assumptions inherent to the tradition of metaphysics itself become evident.
The work of Jacques Derrida in destabilizing the western philosophical tradition has brought the central assumptions of metaphysics to the forefront. In Margins of Philosophy, a collection of Derrida’s essays, he focuses on the proper limits of philosophy. Derrida addresses the question of authority in philosophy, as well as its boundaries. This investigation examines philosophical writing as a text.
these ten writings in fact ask the question of the margin. Gnawing away at the border which would make this question into a particular case, they are to blur the line which separates a text from its controlled margin. They interrogate philosophy beyond its meaning, treating it not only as a discourse but as a determined text inscribed in a general text, enclosed in the representation of its own margin. (Derrida “Tympan” xxiii)
Philosophy is writing; thus it operates with the same play of signs and form as all writing, namely literature. In treating philosophical writing as a text, the boundaries between literature and philosophy blur. Blurring, disrupting, destabilizing, and play are the techniques employed by Derrida to question philosophy’s foundational assumptions. Derrida is not a critic in the usual sense because he does not affirm or deny arguments, nor does he set up any type of system or methodology in which propositions are analyzed. It would be disingenuous to simply appropriate Derrida as an analyst of Hegel, but nevertheless, Derrida does encounter Hegel in his dismantling of traditional philosophy. An analysis of several key aspects of Derrida’s thought would therefore reveal the underlying assumptions and problems present in Hegel’s “overcoming” of the form of “picture-thinking” into philosophical Begriff, Notions.
By setting Begriff over Vorstellungen Hegel creates a binary opposition, a pair of contrasted terms. In fact, binary oppositions are prevalent throughout Hegel’s project: Begriff over Vorstellungen, Philosophy over Religion, and Logos over metaphor. Furthermore, the establishment of such binaries is grounded in the entire project of metaphysics. Philosophy always sets up a pair of contrasted terms: mind/body, inside/outside, transcendent/immanent, essence/appearance, etc . . . This method is how mankind organizes his world; however, in metaphysics, one term of the pair is always placed higher, given more importance. Plato is the inaugurator of this idea: the term which contains the logos becomes the privileged term. The second term always conceals the truth and is therefore inadequate. The privileged term contains the Truth, the ideal Forms, the transcendent; whereas the subordinated term is the imperfect, the body, the immanent reality. However, this hierarchical structure is problematic and misleading. All of metaphysics is infected with this method of thinking, and Hegel is no exception.
With all binaries, the meaning of one term is necessarily dependent and derived from the other term. Each term is defined as an opposition, so it cannot adequately be explained without the other. Its meaning is contained in the other. Therefore, Hegel’s Begriff is dependent on Vorstellungen for its meaning. Hegel, in fact, acknowledges this fact by admitting that Christianity must come first in history before Spirit can realize itself in Absolute Knowing. Religion then is the necessary preliminary to philosophy. But not only does picture-thinking necessarily come first on the scene, it gives meaning to Notions. Kojève writes:
This lack of self-consciousness, this imaginative projection of the spiritual or human content into the beyond (Vor-stellung), distinguishes religious (theological) thought from philosophical (anthropological) thought. Furthermore, these two types of thought necessarily coexist: while opposing one another, they engender and mutually complete one another. (Kojève 71)
If meaning is mutual - each term being in a reciprocal relationship of meaning - then the movement of elevation of one term above the other seems inauthentic. Derrida insists on the mutual play of meanings and the dismantling of the hierarchical order of metaphysics; however, this overturning of binaries was in fact inaugurated by Nietzsche. Derrida writes
Thus one could reconsider all the pairs of opposites on which philosophy is construed and on which our discourse lives, not in order to see opposition erase itself but to see what indicates that each of the terms must appear as the différance of the other, as the other different and deferred in the economy of the same. . . .(Derrida “Différance” p17)
Derrida’s strategy is not simply to invert the binary opposition but to displace the opposition itself. One concept is related to a multiplicity of other concepts in a web of difference. This relationship between concepts destabilizes binary opposition. Derrida invents the word “différance” to allow for a system of play between concepts.
every concept is inscribed in a chain or in a system within which it refers to the other, to other concepts, by means of the systematic play of differences. Such a play, différance, is thus no longer simply a concept, but rather the possibility of conceptuality, of a conceptual process and system in general." (Derrida “Différance” p11)
The word “différance” contains both the spatial distinction of differing between two distinct entities and the temporal aspect of deferring. In “différance” the other is different and deferred; “différance” is a “differing-deferring” the other. Derrida’s task in this play of words is to disrupt the normal language of philosophy, to set up a continual movement across concepts creating instability between binary oppositions. Thus the very foundations of metaphysics upon which Hegel rests, become unstable. At the heart of the matter lies the fact that Vorstellungen and Begriff cannot truly be separated from one another.
One area of crossing over between these two forms is in language. Hegel argues for the inadequacy of one form, “picture-thinking” compared to the other, Notions, but “form” is simply the language in which an idea is expressed. Form is nothing more than language, and language is nothing more than a system of signs. Hegel’s claim that Notions must be expressed in a properly philosophical language leads Derrida to analyze Hegel’s semiology in “The Pit and the Pyramid.” Traditionally, metaphysics places value in presence; Being is presence. In language, the object is not present; it is deferred by the sign. The sign is merely a transition; it does not contain presence. Derrida writes
In determining Being as presence (presence in the form of the object, or self-presence under the rubric of consciousness), metaphysics could treat the sign only as a transition. Metaphysics is even indistinguishable from such a treatment of the sign. (Derrida “The Pit and the Pyramid” p71)
Hidden behind this metaphysical claim of presence is the assumption that the sign can refer to a single object and encompass its meaning and that the sign contains less value because it is not the actual presence, only a signifier. Hegel’s philosophy is simply a repetition of this metaphysical distinction of presence. Hegel’s entire task is to make immediately present the truth concealed in the appearance of Christianity. Therefore, the proper language for the expression of Begriff is that which is closest to presence, to the immediate thought, namely pure “logos.” But logos, pure rationality, is best expressed through speech. In speech, presence is required; both the speaker and listener must be present for meaning to be communicated. However, writing requires a lack; the writer is never present to the reader. Furthermore, as Aristotle claims, spoken words lie closer to thought:
Aristotle is the model claimed by Hegel for his philosophy of spirit, “Spoken words are the symbols of mental experience and written words are the symbols of spoken words.” (Derrida “The Pit and the Pyramid” p75)
There is one less degree of separation between spoken words and written words in relation to thought. Thus, metaphysics sets up another binary opposition, privileging speech over writing.
The insistence on speech in philosophy is inaugurated by Socrates who never actually wrote anything. In a Socratic dialogue truth is uncovered through interaction between two people, being present to one another. Writing cannot function as an active dialogue and therefore is inadequate for discovering truth. In writing, thought, which lies inside consciousness, is externalized, placing it at a distance from consciousness. Derrida explains
The language of sound, speech, which carries the inside to the outside, does not simply abandon it there, as does writing. Conserving the inside in itself as it is in the act of emitting it to the outside, speech is par excellence that which confers existence, presence (Dasein), upon the interior representation, making the concept (the signified) exist." (Derrida “The Pit and the Pyramid” p90)
Speech naturally leads itself to be taken up again by consciousness. There is no lapse in time between speech and thought. In writing there is a spatial and temporal separation, a negativity, between thought and sign. In speech there is no such lack; consciousness can immediately absolve what is presented to it.
However, if sight is ideal, hearing is even more so. It 'relifts' (relève) sight. Despite the ideality of light and vision, the objects perceived by the eye, for example plastic works of art, persist beyond the perception of their sensory, exterior, stubborn existence; they resist the Aufhebung, and in and of themselves cannot be absolutely relève by temporal interiority. They hold back the work of dialectics. This being the case for plastic works of art, it certainly will be so for writing as such. But not for music and speech. Hearing is the most sublime sense. (Derrida “The Pit and Pyramid” p92)
The privileged relationship of speech over writing is not a mere side issue but a foundational belief of metaphysics. Hegel’s thought, which is the apex of metaphysics, must necessarily agree with this relationship. Derrida asserts
This teleological concept of sound as the movement of idealization, the Aufhebung of natural exteriority, the relève of the visible into the audible, is, along with the entire philosophy of nature, the fundamental presupposition of the Hegelian interpretation of language." (Derrida “The Pit and the Pyramid” p93)
If Hegel is to be consistent, his philosophical language, the language of Notion, must be equivalent to speech in its relationship to presence. If this is possible, then the language of philosophy would be that of pure “logos.” This would indeed elevate it above symbolic “picture-thinking,” and Hegel’s project would be valid. The next step therefore, should be to see how Hegel analyzes written text, and if he really does in fact arrive at a truly philosophical language.
Hegel argues for a hierarchy of written text. Non-phonetic writing is the least adequate form because it still only relates in symbols. This corresponds to the non-ideal picture-thinking form. Hegel sites Egyptian hieroglyphics as an example of such text. In contrast, purely phonetic writing would be equivalent to speech and therefore, would be the proper language for philosophy. Such a language would be totally inhabited by voice. Hegel claims that alphabetic writing is purely phonetic, thus solving the problem imposed by written text. However, Derrida dismantles this logic and reveals its inadequacies by showing that Hegel overlooks the key element of non-phonetic signs even in alphabetic language. Derrida writes
The alphabetic system, such as we practice it, is not and cannot be purely phonetic. Writing can never be totally inhabited by the voice. The nonphonetic functions, if you will, the operative silences of alphabetic writing, are not factual accidents or waste products one might hope to reduce (punctuation, figure, spacing). (Derrida “The Pit and the Pyramid” p96)
These non-phonetic signs in all language are not accidental, but vital to meaning. Without punctuation, written text cannot make any sense, making communication impossible. In “Différance” Derrida writes
So-called phonetic writing, by all rights and principle, and not only due to an empirical or technical insufficiency, can function only by admitting into its system nonphonetic "signs" (punctuation, spacing, etc.) (Derrida “Différance” p5)
Thus, Hegel’s justification of alphabetic writing being appropriate for the form of Notions is inadequate. Philosophical writing must be given the same treatment as all other writing. Once again, the distinctions between philosophy and literature blur and the two overlap. There can be no purely philosophical language.
As written text, philosophy is composed of linguistic signs. Thus, immediate presence is lost and the sign is merely a signifier, deferring the object. Derrida claims that this opens up play between signifier and signified:
The sign unites an 'independent representation' and an 'intuition,' in other words, a concept (signified) and a sensory perception (of a signifier). But Hegel must immediately recognize a kind of separation, a disjointing which, by dislocating the 'intuition,' opens the space and play of signification. There is no longer in the signifying unity, in the welding of representation and intuition, simply a relationship between two terms. (Derrida “The Pit and the Pyramid” p81)
Written signs create a web of meaning, referring and relating to other signs and objects, both present and absent, creating a destabilizing effect on the strict signifier/signified relationship. Thus, the nature of text plays between presence and absence and cannot be pinned down as either. This turns the metaphysical value of presence on its head. Furthermore, speech operates in exactly the same way!
in the system of language, there are only differences. . . . these differences play: in language, in speech too, and in the exchange between language and speech. . . . What is written as différance, then, will be the playing movement that "produces" - by means of something that is not simply an activity - these differences, these effects of difference. (Derrida “Différance” p11)
Derrida disrupts the binary opposition of speech and writing with “différance.” In speech, “différance” is indistinguishable from difference and so meaning is lost. Thus speech is just as incapable of relating pure thought as language is. The very distinction between speech and writing is blurred because “différance” lies between the two. Derrida writes
The order which resists this opposition, and resists it because it transports it, is announced in a movement of différance (with an a) between two differences of two letters, a différance which belongs neither to the voice nor to writing in the usual sense, and which is located, as the strange space . . . between speech and writing, and beyond the tranquil familiarity which links us to one and the other, occasionally reassuring us in our illusion that they are two. (Derrida “Différance” p5)
Speech is susceptible to the play of meaning and signification just like writing. Any type of communication, including philosophical discourse, is unable to escape the play of signification.
As the distinction between speech and language blurs, the privileged status of philosophy is uprooted. Herein lies the true limit of philosophy: its text.
Beyond the philosophical text there is not a blank, virgin, empty margin, but another text, a weave of differences of forces without any present center of reference . . . . also to recall that the written text of philosophy (this time in its books) overflows and cracks its meaning. (Derrida “Tympan” xxiii)
It is impossible to separate philosophy from its text; as text, it is merely a system of signs. Therefore, philosophy is incapable of expressing pure “logos.” The form of Begriff in Hegel is an impossible ideal. Any philosophical text will contain elements of literature, and literature will contain elements of philosophy because the two overlap. Thus, all philosophical writing will contain metaphor, style, symbol, allusion, and even perhaps plot. The Phenomenology of Spirit is itself a work of literature in which Spirit is the protagonist and the plot is Spirit’s “coming of age” in History. The closing lines of the chapter on Absolute Knowing must be read as metaphor
Their [Spirits as they are in themselves] preservation, regarded from the side of their free existence appearing in the form of contingency, is History; but regarded from the side of their [philosophically] comprehended organization, it is the Science of Knowing in the sphere of appearance: the two together, comprehended History, form alike the inwardizing and the Calvary of absolute Spirit, the actuality, truth, and certainty of his throne, without which he would be lifeless and alone. Only
From the chalice of his realm of spirits
foams forth for Him his own infinitude.
(Hegel p493 para 808)
Even in Hegel’s closing text, the boundaries of literature and philosophy overflow in metaphor. The conclusion must be drawn that no purely philosophical language is possible. The form of Begriff is just as problematic as the form of religious “picture-thinking” which it tried to surpass. Derrida aptly quotes Nietzsche
What then is truth? A mobile army of metaphors, metonymics, anthropomorphisms: in short, a sum of human relations which became poetically and rhetorically intensified, metamorphosed, adorned, and after long usage, seem to a nation fixed, canonic and binding; truths are illusions of which one has forgotten that they are illusions (Derrida “White Metaphor” p217)
Hegel’s grandiose attempt to create an all-encompassing system of thought inevitably rubs against the very limits of philosophy. In so doing, his culmination of metaphysical thinking inescapably declines into a dismantling of the underlying assumptions inherent to metaphysics. Thus, the most appropriate philosopher to follow Hegel is Nietzsche, who begins to tear down this unsustainable structure, hailing its death. Nietzsche, like a prophet, ushers in a new age. Hegel, the philosopher of Modernism, whose comprehensive system inevitably crashes, must make way for the Post-Modern philosopher, whose unrelenting dismantling of all systems culminates in the “deconstruction” of Jacques Derrida. Where we go from here is anyone’s guess.
Hegel “Deconstructed”:
An Analysis of Hegel’s Vorstellungen and Begriff
“Today nobody will stop with faith; they all go further.
It would perhaps be rash to inquire where to . . .”
- Søren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling
The German philosopher, G.W.F. Hegel changed the very nature of philosophy by the development of perhaps the most comprehensive and ambitious system of thought ever produced. No one has ever attempted a project like Hegel’s since the publication of his Phenomenology of Spirit in which he lays out the basic ideas of his philosophy. Hegel represents the epitome of Enlightenment thought. As such, his philosophy is a call to the principles of science and logic over religious faith. Hegel believes that the truth contained in religious beliefs is merely symbolic and can be appropriated into philosophical form. Hegel writes in the Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion, “Philosophy has been reproached with setting itself above religion; this, however, is false as an actual matter of fact . . . it sets itself merely above the form of faith, the content is the same in both cases.” The movement from religious thinking into philosophical thinking is critical to Hegel’s system. Therefore, it is necessary to investigate the validity of such a transition of forms. Hegel sees religious faith, most importantly in Christianity, as a stepping stone towards a more complete understanding. He claims that the truth contained in Christianity is apparent only in the form of “picture-thinking” which prevents full realization of that truth. Thus, “picture-thinking” is “overcome” in the more appropriate form of Notions, purely philosophical concepts. The methodology employed by Hegel to move from “picture-thinking” to Notions is examined in the subsequent work of the French philosopher and literary critic, Jacques Derrida, whose writing brings into question some of the foundational assumptions problematic to the Hegelian process. This assault yields remarkable consequences for the status of metaphysics in philosophy. But before this can be addressed, Hegel’s project needs to be explicated further to see how he gets to this idea of Notions.
The entire Phenomenology of Spirit is an account of philosophical consciousness becoming aware of itself as self-consciousness. This is the story of the coming of Spirit (Geist) to self-consciousness. Spirit is the metaphysical entity which encompasses all reality, analogous to the universal brotherhood, spirit, of mankind. According to Hegel, all of human history is the progression of Spirit to an understanding of itself, namely Spirit becoming aware of itself as Spirit. Each epoch of history witnesses a higher level of understanding of consciousness. Thus, the end of history is the moment when Spirit becomes fully self-conscious because it has thus reached the highest level of understanding. Spirit fully understands itself, seeing itself as the whole of reality. Human history, then, is the story of Spirit.
The coming of Spirit to self-consciousness is finally realized in Christianity. Hegel writes,
The absolute Spirit has given itself implicitly the shape of self-consciousness, and therefore has also given it for its consciousness - this now appears as the belief of the world that Spirit is immediately present as a self-conscious Being, i.e. as an actual man, that the believer is immediately certain of Spirit, sees, feels, and hears this divinity . . . . this God is sensuously and directly beheld as a Self, as an actual individual man; only so is this God self-consciousness. (Hegel pg. 458-459 par 758)
In other words, during the course of history, the belief in the union between absolute Spirit and man will arise. This man is Jesus Christ, the union between God and man. Thus, human history, being the realization of Spirit, culminates in Christianity. Hegel writes that all prior shapes of Spirit were merely progressing to this state. Christianity is therefore the highest form of the Unhappy Consciousness. All other forms could only express partial truths, but in Christianity, all truth is expressed. This truth is that the human finite self-consciousness and the Absolute are united in one person, Jesus Christ. This truth of the union between finite and absolute is expressed in the immediacy, being the person of Christ.
The form of truth contained in Christianity is not explicit; it is contained in a representational form. Hegel calls this form of picture-thinking, Vorstellungen. Christianity is an important stage in human history because it finally expresses all of truth but only in story. This metaphorical thinking makes the realization of the truth expressed in Christianity in the Here and Now impossible.
This form of picture-thinking constitutes the specific mode in which Spirit, in this community, becomes aware of itself. This form is not yet Spirit’s self consciousness that has advanced to its Notion qua Notion: the mediation is still incomplete. This combination of Being and Thought is, therefore, defective in that spiritual Being is still burdened with an unreconciled split into a Here and a Beyond. The content is the true content, but all its moments, when placed in the medium of picture-thinking, have the character of being uncomprehended . . . . (Hegel pg. 463 par 765)
Hegel argues that religious picture-thinking is an imperfect form and needs to be overcome for the represented truth in Christianity to be expressed for the universal. This truth must be properly expressed in the form of Notions, Begriff. In order to understand this move of Aufhebung, lifting up, it is important to investigate what Hegel sees as the inadequacies of mere picture-thinking.
Despite having a true content, religious Vorstellungen is an invalid form for Hegel because the very form itself makes immediate realization of that truth impossible. The inadequacy for Hegel lies in metaphors. Thinking only in terms of images, these images lie outside of consciousness. They are distinct from that consciousness. Hegel writes:
What is pictured or figuratively conceived, what immediately is, has, as such, the form of being something other than consciousness; but a Notion is also something that immediately is, and this distinction, in so far as it is present in consciousness itself, is its determinate content; but since this content is at the same time a content grasped in thought, consciousness remains immediately aware of its unity with this determinate and distinct being, not, as in the case of a picture-thought, where consciousness still has specially to bear in mind that this is its picture-thought; on the contrary, the Notion is for me straightway my Notion. (Hegel p 120 para 197)
To put it simply, the truth contained in the story of Christianity is not explicitly present to self-consciousness because in picture-thinking, consciousness is placed at a distance from the characters in the story. Truth is grasped as representation, which is not as explicit as immediate presence. However, if truth is understood in conceptual form, its content is immediately grasped in consciousness. Thus the problem is a problem of remoteness; I am not Jesus Christ. According to Hegel, the fallacy of Christianity is individuality. As long as the union between absolute and finite exist only in the picture-thought of Jesus Christ, it cannot exist for me, being distinct from Jesus in time and space. Hegel writes:
Looking at this more closely, Spirit, in the immediacy of self-consciousness, is this individual self-consciousness, and so is an antithesis to the universal self-consciousness. It is an exclusive One or unit which has the still unresolved form of a sensuous ‘other’ for the consciousness for which it is immediately present. This ‘other’ does not as yet know Spirit as its own, i.e. Spirit as an individual Self is not yet equally the universal Self, the Self of everyone. (Hegel pg 461-462 par 762)
The problem with picture-thinking is the apparent alien reality of the truth in Jesus Christ. Any consciousness that is not him, will not realize the union of the absolute and the finite. The problem is also temporal. As long as the incarnation is understood as a single event, it must necessarily pass into history. With the death of the person of Jesus, the union of God and man also passes out of existence, and becomes inaccessible. Thus the form of Vorstellungen is inadequate and fails to fully satisfy man, who cannot yet achieve the synthesis pictorially apparent in Jesus Christ.
Another shortcoming of the form of picture-thinking, is its insistence of a beyond. In religious thought, the satisfaction and perfection of man is placed in heaven and can only be achieved after death. The Unhappy Consciousness can only be made completely happy by the final separation of the soul from the body. For Hegel, this is inadequate because it places the solution somewhere in the beyond. This is absurd because when one dies, consciousness ceases to exist. Accordingly, the solution must be reached in the Here and Now.
This unity of essence and the Self having been implicitly achieved, consciousness, too, still has this picture-thought of its reconciliation, but as a picture-thought. It obtains satisfaction by externally attaching to its pure negativity the positive meaning of the unity of itself with the essential Being; its satisfaction thus itself remains burdened with the antithesis of a beyond. Its own reconciliation therefore enters its consciousness as something distant, as something in the distant future . . . (Hegel p478 para 787)
Christianity promises the union of God and man in the afterlife. To Hegel, this demonstrates the failure of Vorstellungen. Instead of a deferral to some beyond, Hegel insists on the possibility of the immediate realization of the satisfaction of man.
In order to make the truth contained in the content of Christianity available in the Here and Now, Hegel must secularize Christian theology and overcome mere picture-thinking. He writes, “The content of this picture-thinking is absolute Spirit; and all that now remains to be done is to supersede this mere form” (pg 479 par 788). Christian theology revealed its inadequacy by deferring the unity of absolute and finite to the realm of the Beyond. In doing so, it conceals the possibility of immediate communion with the absolute Spirit by stories and myth. Hegel’s solution is to raise up picture-thinking to the higher level of understanding, Notions.
Before the true content can also receive its true form for consciousness, a higher formative development of consciousness is necessary; it must raise its intuition of absolute Substance into the Notion . . . . (Hegel pg 463 par 765)
Notions, Begriff, are the appropriate form for the truth revealed pictorially in Christian theology. Notions are philosophical concepts which express truth through pure rationality, Logos. The task of philosophy is to mediate the truth that is present in the story of the incarnation.
Hence for Hegel, faith is important as a stage toward higher understanding, but it is not the final form. Faith must be raised up and reinterpreted to the form of concepts. In Notions, the same truth contained in the story of Christianity, namely the immediacy of the Absolute Spirit, is understood in conceptual form. Notions are purely structures of thought, which is one with consciousness. Thus the problem of separation is overcome because concepts are immediately my own; therefore, their truth is my truth. In philosophical Begriff all of the problems of religious Vorstellungen are overcome. The truth is mediated in a higher level of understanding that makes the realization of the absolute possible to my immediate consciousness. In other words, the truth explicitly rendered into concepts is the realization that the union between absolute and finite is possible in every man as soon as he realizes he is part of Spirit. The political philosopher, Alexandre Kojève, summarizes Hegel’s argument:
Now, according to Hegel, one can realize the Christian anthropological ideal (which he accepts in full) only by “overcoming” the Christian theology: Christian Man can really become what he would like to be only by becoming a man without God - or, if you will, a God-Man. He must realize in himself what at first he thought was realized in his God. To be really Christian, he himself must become Christ. (Kojève pg 67)
When picture-thinking is overcome and raised up to the level of Notions, here we find the true meaning of the story: we are all God-man. Immediately, my own consciousness and the infinite, absolute are one when I realize myself as Spirit. This is what Hegel means by Absolute Knowing:
This last shape of Spirit - the Spirit which at the same time gives its complete and true content the form of the Self and thereby realizes its Notion as remaining in its Notion in this realization - this is absolute knowing; it is Spirit that knows itself in the shape of Spirit, or a comprehensive knowing [in terms if the Notion]. (Hegel p485 para 798)
In Absolute Knowing, the Unhappy Consciousness is fully satisfied by being universally recognized by all, as all are Spirit. This realization of perfect satisfaction must occur in the perfect State which absolves the master and slave distinction. In the perfect State, all men are Citizens, universally recognized in brotherly love. With the satisfaction of all human desires in the perfect State, history, human progress, must end as there is nowhere left to progress. Thus the citizen with absolute knowledge, at the end of History, is also the ideal "Wise Man." By attaining wisdom in its entirety, Hegel ends the quest of philosophy, inaugurated by Socrates and Plato, as the search for wisdom. Thus in the Hegelian System, metaphysics is culminated, its ends reached, its fulfillment accomplished.
Hegel's project fully flushed out, a critical examination remains to be made about whether this move from the form of religious thinking to the form of philosophical thinking is complete or even possible. What does it really mean to simply rescue Christianity from its form? The Aufhebung, the overcoming, of religious picture-thinking into proper philosophical concepts hinges upon language. But what is a completely philosophical language appropriate for the explication of Notions? What is the proper form for a philosophical text? In searching for answers to these questions, several problematic assumptions inherent to the tradition of metaphysics itself become evident.
The work of Jacques Derrida in destabilizing the western philosophical tradition has brought the central assumptions of metaphysics to the forefront. In Margins of Philosophy, a collection of Derrida’s essays, he focuses on the proper limits of philosophy. Derrida addresses the question of authority in philosophy, as well as its boundaries. This investigation examines philosophical writing as a text.
these ten writings in fact ask the question of the margin. Gnawing away at the border which would make this question into a particular case, they are to blur the line which separates a text from its controlled margin. They interrogate philosophy beyond its meaning, treating it not only as a discourse but as a determined text inscribed in a general text, enclosed in the representation of its own margin. (Derrida “Tympan” xxiii)
Philosophy is writing; thus it operates with the same play of signs and form as all writing, namely literature. In treating philosophical writing as a text, the boundaries between literature and philosophy blur. Blurring, disrupting, destabilizing, and play are the techniques employed by Derrida to question philosophy’s foundational assumptions. Derrida is not a critic in the usual sense because he does not affirm or deny arguments, nor does he set up any type of system or methodology in which propositions are analyzed. It would be disingenuous to simply appropriate Derrida as an analyst of Hegel, but nevertheless, Derrida does encounter Hegel in his dismantling of traditional philosophy. An analysis of several key aspects of Derrida’s thought would therefore reveal the underlying assumptions and problems present in Hegel’s “overcoming” of the form of “picture-thinking” into philosophical Begriff, Notions.
By setting Begriff over Vorstellungen Hegel creates a binary opposition, a pair of contrasted terms. In fact, binary oppositions are prevalent throughout Hegel’s project: Begriff over Vorstellungen, Philosophy over Religion, and Logos over metaphor. Furthermore, the establishment of such binaries is grounded in the entire project of metaphysics. Philosophy always sets up a pair of contrasted terms: mind/body, inside/outside, transcendent/immanent, essence/appearance, etc . . . This method is how mankind organizes his world; however, in metaphysics, one term of the pair is always placed higher, given more importance. Plato is the inaugurator of this idea: the term which contains the logos becomes the privileged term. The second term always conceals the truth and is therefore inadequate. The privileged term contains the Truth, the ideal Forms, the transcendent; whereas the subordinated term is the imperfect, the body, the immanent reality. However, this hierarchical structure is problematic and misleading. All of metaphysics is infected with this method of thinking, and Hegel is no exception.
With all binaries, the meaning of one term is necessarily dependent and derived from the other term. Each term is defined as an opposition, so it cannot adequately be explained without the other. Its meaning is contained in the other. Therefore, Hegel’s Begriff is dependent on Vorstellungen for its meaning. Hegel, in fact, acknowledges this fact by admitting that Christianity must come first in history before Spirit can realize itself in Absolute Knowing. Religion then is the necessary preliminary to philosophy. But not only does picture-thinking necessarily come first on the scene, it gives meaning to Notions. Kojève writes:
This lack of self-consciousness, this imaginative projection of the spiritual or human content into the beyond (Vor-stellung), distinguishes religious (theological) thought from philosophical (anthropological) thought. Furthermore, these two types of thought necessarily coexist: while opposing one another, they engender and mutually complete one another. (Kojève 71)
If meaning is mutual - each term being in a reciprocal relationship of meaning - then the movement of elevation of one term above the other seems inauthentic. Derrida insists on the mutual play of meanings and the dismantling of the hierarchical order of metaphysics; however, this overturning of binaries was in fact inaugurated by Nietzsche. Derrida writes
Thus one could reconsider all the pairs of opposites on which philosophy is construed and on which our discourse lives, not in order to see opposition erase itself but to see what indicates that each of the terms must appear as the différance of the other, as the other different and deferred in the economy of the same. . . .(Derrida “Différance” p17)
Derrida’s strategy is not simply to invert the binary opposition but to displace the opposition itself. One concept is related to a multiplicity of other concepts in a web of difference. This relationship between concepts destabilizes binary opposition. Derrida invents the word “différance” to allow for a system of play between concepts.
every concept is inscribed in a chain or in a system within which it refers to the other, to other concepts, by means of the systematic play of differences. Such a play, différance, is thus no longer simply a concept, but rather the possibility of conceptuality, of a conceptual process and system in general." (Derrida “Différance” p11)
The word “différance” contains both the spatial distinction of differing between two distinct entities and the temporal aspect of deferring. In “différance” the other is different and deferred; “différance” is a “differing-deferring” the other. Derrida’s task in this play of words is to disrupt the normal language of philosophy, to set up a continual movement across concepts creating instability between binary oppositions. Thus the very foundations of metaphysics upon which Hegel rests, become unstable. At the heart of the matter lies the fact that Vorstellungen and Begriff cannot truly be separated from one another.
One area of crossing over between these two forms is in language. Hegel argues for the inadequacy of one form, “picture-thinking” compared to the other, Notions, but “form” is simply the language in which an idea is expressed. Form is nothing more than language, and language is nothing more than a system of signs. Hegel’s claim that Notions must be expressed in a properly philosophical language leads Derrida to analyze Hegel’s semiology in “The Pit and the Pyramid.” Traditionally, metaphysics places value in presence; Being is presence. In language, the object is not present; it is deferred by the sign. The sign is merely a transition; it does not contain presence. Derrida writes
In determining Being as presence (presence in the form of the object, or self-presence under the rubric of consciousness), metaphysics could treat the sign only as a transition. Metaphysics is even indistinguishable from such a treatment of the sign. (Derrida “The Pit and the Pyramid” p71)
Hidden behind this metaphysical claim of presence is the assumption that the sign can refer to a single object and encompass its meaning and that the sign contains less value because it is not the actual presence, only a signifier. Hegel’s philosophy is simply a repetition of this metaphysical distinction of presence. Hegel’s entire task is to make immediately present the truth concealed in the appearance of Christianity. Therefore, the proper language for the expression of Begriff is that which is closest to presence, to the immediate thought, namely pure “logos.” But logos, pure rationality, is best expressed through speech. In speech, presence is required; both the speaker and listener must be present for meaning to be communicated. However, writing requires a lack; the writer is never present to the reader. Furthermore, as Aristotle claims, spoken words lie closer to thought:
Aristotle is the model claimed by Hegel for his philosophy of spirit, “Spoken words are the symbols of mental experience and written words are the symbols of spoken words.” (Derrida “The Pit and the Pyramid” p75)
There is one less degree of separation between spoken words and written words in relation to thought. Thus, metaphysics sets up another binary opposition, privileging speech over writing.
The insistence on speech in philosophy is inaugurated by Socrates who never actually wrote anything. In a Socratic dialogue truth is uncovered through interaction between two people, being present to one another. Writing cannot function as an active dialogue and therefore is inadequate for discovering truth. In writing, thought, which lies inside consciousness, is externalized, placing it at a distance from consciousness. Derrida explains
The language of sound, speech, which carries the inside to the outside, does not simply abandon it there, as does writing. Conserving the inside in itself as it is in the act of emitting it to the outside, speech is par excellence that which confers existence, presence (Dasein), upon the interior representation, making the concept (the signified) exist." (Derrida “The Pit and the Pyramid” p90)
Speech naturally leads itself to be taken up again by consciousness. There is no lapse in time between speech and thought. In writing there is a spatial and temporal separation, a negativity, between thought and sign. In speech there is no such lack; consciousness can immediately absolve what is presented to it.
However, if sight is ideal, hearing is even more so. It 'relifts' (relève) sight. Despite the ideality of light and vision, the objects perceived by the eye, for example plastic works of art, persist beyond the perception of their sensory, exterior, stubborn existence; they resist the Aufhebung, and in and of themselves cannot be absolutely relève by temporal interiority. They hold back the work of dialectics. This being the case for plastic works of art, it certainly will be so for writing as such. But not for music and speech. Hearing is the most sublime sense. (Derrida “The Pit and Pyramid” p92)
The privileged relationship of speech over writing is not a mere side issue but a foundational belief of metaphysics. Hegel’s thought, which is the apex of metaphysics, must necessarily agree with this relationship. Derrida asserts
This teleological concept of sound as the movement of idealization, the Aufhebung of natural exteriority, the relève of the visible into the audible, is, along with the entire philosophy of nature, the fundamental presupposition of the Hegelian interpretation of language." (Derrida “The Pit and the Pyramid” p93)
If Hegel is to be consistent, his philosophical language, the language of Notion, must be equivalent to speech in its relationship to presence. If this is possible, then the language of philosophy would be that of pure “logos.” This would indeed elevate it above symbolic “picture-thinking,” and Hegel’s project would be valid. The next step therefore, should be to see how Hegel analyzes written text, and if he really does in fact arrive at a truly philosophical language.
Hegel argues for a hierarchy of written text. Non-phonetic writing is the least adequate form because it still only relates in symbols. This corresponds to the non-ideal picture-thinking form. Hegel sites Egyptian hieroglyphics as an example of such text. In contrast, purely phonetic writing would be equivalent to speech and therefore, would be the proper language for philosophy. Such a language would be totally inhabited by voice. Hegel claims that alphabetic writing is purely phonetic, thus solving the problem imposed by written text. However, Derrida dismantles this logic and reveals its inadequacies by showing that Hegel overlooks the key element of non-phonetic signs even in alphabetic language. Derrida writes
The alphabetic system, such as we practice it, is not and cannot be purely phonetic. Writing can never be totally inhabited by the voice. The nonphonetic functions, if you will, the operative silences of alphabetic writing, are not factual accidents or waste products one might hope to reduce (punctuation, figure, spacing). (Derrida “The Pit and the Pyramid” p96)
These non-phonetic signs in all language are not accidental, but vital to meaning. Without punctuation, written text cannot make any sense, making communication impossible. In “Différance” Derrida writes
So-called phonetic writing, by all rights and principle, and not only due to an empirical or technical insufficiency, can function only by admitting into its system nonphonetic "signs" (punctuation, spacing, etc.) (Derrida “Différance” p5)
Thus, Hegel’s justification of alphabetic writing being appropriate for the form of Notions is inadequate. Philosophical writing must be given the same treatment as all other writing. Once again, the distinctions between philosophy and literature blur and the two overlap. There can be no purely philosophical language.
As written text, philosophy is composed of linguistic signs. Thus, immediate presence is lost and the sign is merely a signifier, deferring the object. Derrida claims that this opens up play between signifier and signified:
The sign unites an 'independent representation' and an 'intuition,' in other words, a concept (signified) and a sensory perception (of a signifier). But Hegel must immediately recognize a kind of separation, a disjointing which, by dislocating the 'intuition,' opens the space and play of signification. There is no longer in the signifying unity, in the welding of representation and intuition, simply a relationship between two terms. (Derrida “The Pit and the Pyramid” p81)
Written signs create a web of meaning, referring and relating to other signs and objects, both present and absent, creating a destabilizing effect on the strict signifier/signified relationship. Thus, the nature of text plays between presence and absence and cannot be pinned down as either. This turns the metaphysical value of presence on its head. Furthermore, speech operates in exactly the same way!
in the system of language, there are only differences. . . . these differences play: in language, in speech too, and in the exchange between language and speech. . . . What is written as différance, then, will be the playing movement that "produces" - by means of something that is not simply an activity - these differences, these effects of difference. (Derrida “Différance” p11)
Derrida disrupts the binary opposition of speech and writing with “différance.” In speech, “différance” is indistinguishable from difference and so meaning is lost. Thus speech is just as incapable of relating pure thought as language is. The very distinction between speech and writing is blurred because “différance” lies between the two. Derrida writes
The order which resists this opposition, and resists it because it transports it, is announced in a movement of différance (with an a) between two differences of two letters, a différance which belongs neither to the voice nor to writing in the usual sense, and which is located, as the strange space . . . between speech and writing, and beyond the tranquil familiarity which links us to one and the other, occasionally reassuring us in our illusion that they are two. (Derrida “Différance” p5)
Speech is susceptible to the play of meaning and signification just like writing. Any type of communication, including philosophical discourse, is unable to escape the play of signification.
As the distinction between speech and language blurs, the privileged status of philosophy is uprooted. Herein lies the true limit of philosophy: its text.
Beyond the philosophical text there is not a blank, virgin, empty margin, but another text, a weave of differences of forces without any present center of reference . . . . also to recall that the written text of philosophy (this time in its books) overflows and cracks its meaning. (Derrida “Tympan” xxiii)
It is impossible to separate philosophy from its text; as text, it is merely a system of signs. Therefore, philosophy is incapable of expressing pure “logos.” The form of Begriff in Hegel is an impossible ideal. Any philosophical text will contain elements of literature, and literature will contain elements of philosophy because the two overlap. Thus, all philosophical writing will contain metaphor, style, symbol, allusion, and even perhaps plot. The Phenomenology of Spirit is itself a work of literature in which Spirit is the protagonist and the plot is Spirit’s “coming of age” in History. The closing lines of the chapter on Absolute Knowing must be read as metaphor
Their [Spirits as they are in themselves] preservation, regarded from the side of their free existence appearing in the form of contingency, is History; but regarded from the side of their [philosophically] comprehended organization, it is the Science of Knowing in the sphere of appearance: the two together, comprehended History, form alike the inwardizing and the Calvary of absolute Spirit, the actuality, truth, and certainty of his throne, without which he would be lifeless and alone. Only
From the chalice of his realm of spirits
foams forth for Him his own infinitude.
(Hegel p493 para 808)
Even in Hegel’s closing text, the boundaries of literature and philosophy overflow in metaphor. The conclusion must be drawn that no purely philosophical language is possible. The form of Begriff is just as problematic as the form of religious “picture-thinking” which it tried to surpass. Derrida aptly quotes Nietzsche
What then is truth? A mobile army of metaphors, metonymics, anthropomorphisms: in short, a sum of human relations which became poetically and rhetorically intensified, metamorphosed, adorned, and after long usage, seem to a nation fixed, canonic and binding; truths are illusions of which one has forgotten that they are illusions (Derrida “White Metaphor” p217)
Hegel’s grandiose attempt to create an all-encompassing system of thought inevitably rubs against the very limits of philosophy. In so doing, his culmination of metaphysical thinking inescapably declines into a dismantling of the underlying assumptions inherent to metaphysics. Thus, the most appropriate philosopher to follow Hegel is Nietzsche, who begins to tear down this unsustainable structure, hailing its death. Nietzsche, like a prophet, ushers in a new age. Hegel, the philosopher of Modernism, whose comprehensive system inevitably crashes, must make way for the Post-Modern philosopher, whose unrelenting dismantling of all systems culminates in the “deconstruction” of Jacques Derrida. Where we go from here is anyone’s guess.