acase@tulane.edu / This dissertation argues that Hegel’s Phenomenology presents a rigorous account of the essential tension between politics and theology that lies at the heart of our striving to be at home in the world. The project has two principal components. The first argues, through a detailed exegesis of Chapter IV on self-consciousness, that Hegel derives both our political nature and our impulse to transcend the mundane from the oppositional structure of consciousness, thereby demonstrating that the two impulses are equally rooted in the ontology of man as a self-conscious being. Contrary to recent interpretations, which have tended to focus on the social conditions of normativity to the exclusion of the religious impulse, I argue that the chapter must be read as a whole, as a continuous elaboration of the essential needs of self-consciousness. Rather than understanding the philosophic postures of the stoic and the skeptic and the religious yearning of the unhappy consciousness as spiritual aberrations, resulting from an inadequate social ordering, I argue that they are developments of the bondsman’s discovery of interiority. The relation between these twain impulses then guides an interpretation of the variegated and multifaceted material encountered in the Phenomenology’s subsequent chapters, which present repeated attempts to reconcile this duality and realize the “concept of spirit.” Following a careful analysis of the first stage of “spirit”—the ethical world—I argue that the Phenomenology shows how man’s effort to achieve a harmonious twofold relation to what is other than himself is the obverse of his pursuit of self-knowledge. Ultimately, the tension between politics and theology is only overcome with the advent of absolute knowing, wherein spirit attains a comprehensive understanding of its essential structure. Hegel’s Phenomenology thus reveals the human quest for just social relations and his longing for the divine to be two facets of his search for self-knowledge. / 1 / Paul T. Wilford
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:TULANE/oai:http://digitallibrary.tulane.edu/:tulane_60885 |
| Date | January 2016 |
| Contributors | Wilford, Paul T. (author), Velkley, Richard (Thesis advisor), School of Liberal Arts Philosophy (Degree granting institution) |
| Publisher | Tulane University |
| Source Sets | Tulane University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text |
| Format | electronic, 277 |
| Rights | No embargo, Copyright is in accordance with U.S. Copyright law. |
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