WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.220 Welcome to The Debate. Today, we are taking on 00:00:03.220 --> 00:00:06.320 what you might call the final boss of philosophy. 00:00:06.780 --> 00:00:09.240 We are standing at the edge of the modern world, 00:00:09.300 --> 00:00:12.119 looking back at the man who claimed, in a sense, 00:00:12.179 --> 00:00:15.119 to have finished the job of thinking. We are 00:00:15.119 --> 00:00:17.879 talking about George Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. 00:00:18.000 --> 00:00:21.320 A man whose ambition was so terrifyingly vast 00:00:21.320 --> 00:00:23.859 that he didn't just want to understand the world. 00:00:23.920 --> 00:00:27.719 He wanted to, well, swallow it whole. Art, religion, 00:00:27.920 --> 00:00:31.519 science, history. politics. He wanted to grind 00:00:31.519 --> 00:00:34.979 it all down into one single unified logical system. 00:00:35.179 --> 00:00:40.320 Grind it down is a violent way to put it. I would 00:00:40.320 --> 00:00:44.079 say he wanted to reveal the architecture of reality 00:00:44.079 --> 00:00:48.340 itself. I mean, Hegel, writing in the early 19th 00:00:48.340 --> 00:00:51.240 century, isn't just another philosopher in the 00:00:51.240 --> 00:00:55.240 canon. He is the pivot point. Before him, we 00:00:55.240 --> 00:00:57.380 have the scattered fragments of the Enlightenment. 00:00:57.789 --> 00:01:00.869 After him, we have, well, everything from Marxism 00:01:00.869 --> 00:01:04.370 to existentialism. My argument today is that 00:01:04.370 --> 00:01:07.010 Hegel offers us the only tool that can actually 00:01:07.010 --> 00:01:09.829 make sense of the chaos we live in. He shows 00:01:09.829 --> 00:01:12.109 us that history isn't just one damn thing after 00:01:12.109 --> 00:01:15.109 another. It's a rational progression toward freedom. 00:01:15.329 --> 00:01:19.150 And that is exactly the problem for me. Because 00:01:19.150 --> 00:01:21.349 when you look at the slaughter bench of history, 00:01:21.569 --> 00:01:24.769 the wars, the plagues, the oppression, and you 00:01:24.769 --> 00:01:27.489 try to tell me it's all rational, You aren't 00:01:27.489 --> 00:01:30.269 just doing philosophy anymore. You're justifying 00:01:30.269 --> 00:01:34.090 suffering. My position is that Hegel's absolute 00:01:34.090 --> 00:01:37.370 idealism is a magnificent, crystalline cage. 00:01:37.750 --> 00:01:40.709 It's a totalizing system that suffocates the 00:01:40.709 --> 00:01:44.269 individual in favor of the whole. I think you're 00:01:44.269 --> 00:01:46.010 judging the building before you've even walked 00:01:46.010 --> 00:01:49.409 through the door. Let's ground this. The year 00:01:49.409 --> 00:01:52.569 is 1806. Hegel is in Jena. He's finishing his 00:01:52.569 --> 00:01:54.930 first masterpiece, The Phenomenology of Spirit. 00:01:55.400 --> 00:01:58.219 Outside his window, the French army is dismantling 00:01:58.219 --> 00:02:00.840 the old Prussian order. The Battle of Jena, right? 00:02:01.060 --> 00:02:04.379 Exactly. And Hegel sees Napoleon riding through 00:02:04.379 --> 00:02:06.739 the city on reconnaissance. He writes this letter 00:02:06.739 --> 00:02:09.020 to his friend Niekmar, and he says he saw the 00:02:09.020 --> 00:02:13.740 world's soul on horseback. It's the perfect hook, 00:02:13.860 --> 00:02:17.379 you know? Hegel didn't see a tyrant or a celebrity. 00:02:17.560 --> 00:02:20.939 He saw an individual who, in that specific moment, 00:02:21.099 --> 00:02:24.310 embodied the driving force of history. He saw 00:02:24.310 --> 00:02:27.370 the universal concept of the age packed into 00:02:27.370 --> 00:02:30.090 a single human being. And this is the core of 00:02:30.090 --> 00:02:33.229 his thought. The true is the whole. You cannot 00:02:33.229 --> 00:02:36.189 understand the individual, Napoleon, you, me, 00:02:36.389 --> 00:02:39.509 without understanding the entire historical system 00:02:39.509 --> 00:02:42.210 that produced us. But notice what happens in 00:02:42.210 --> 00:02:45.229 that story. Napoleon is the active agent, the 00:02:45.229 --> 00:02:47.770 world soul. Hegel is just the guy watching from 00:02:47.770 --> 00:02:50.610 the window, writing a letter about it. And that 00:02:50.610 --> 00:02:53.150 brings me to my main critique. Hegel himself 00:02:53.150 --> 00:02:55.750 admitted that philosophy always comes too late. 00:02:55.870 --> 00:02:58.889 He used the metaphor of the owl of Minerva. The 00:02:58.889 --> 00:03:01.370 bird of wisdom. Yes, the bird that only takes 00:03:01.370 --> 00:03:05.370 flight at dusk. Hegel explicitly says philosophy 00:03:05.370 --> 00:03:09.430 paints its gray in gray. It can only understand 00:03:09.430 --> 00:03:12.229 a shape of life when it has grown old and is 00:03:12.229 --> 00:03:15.569 ready to die. This implies that his system is 00:03:15.569 --> 00:03:18.789 fundamentally retrospective. It's an autopsy. 00:03:19.159 --> 00:03:21.979 It explains why the patient died, but it offers 00:03:21.979 --> 00:03:24.620 zero guidance on how the living should live. 00:03:24.819 --> 00:03:27.580 I mean, if he's right, we are just puppets of 00:03:27.580 --> 00:03:30.860 this world spirit, and philosophy is just a scorecard 00:03:30.860 --> 00:03:33.800 we read after the game is over. That is a very 00:03:33.800 --> 00:03:38.060 cynical reading. Of a profound insight. Hegel 00:03:38.060 --> 00:03:40.219 isn't saying we're helpless. He's saying you 00:03:40.219 --> 00:03:43.280 cannot step outside of your own time. You can't 00:03:43.280 --> 00:03:45.780 play God. To understand your future, you must 00:03:45.780 --> 00:03:48.219 first understand the logic of your past. And 00:03:48.219 --> 00:03:50.099 this brings us to the engine of that logic. We 00:03:50.099 --> 00:03:53.280 have to talk about Geist. The concept that scares 00:03:53.280 --> 00:03:56.520 everyone away. Only because it's mistranslated. 00:03:56.560 --> 00:03:59.340 People hear spirit. And they think of ghosts 00:03:59.340 --> 00:04:02.900 or some kind of mystical deity. But Geist implies 00:04:02.900 --> 00:04:07.080 mind, culture, spirit, and intellect all at once. 00:04:07.219 --> 00:04:09.900 It's the collective structure of human consciousness. 00:04:10.360 --> 00:04:13.840 It's the us that is bigger than any me. Hegel's 00:04:13.840 --> 00:04:16.839 revolutionary idea is that this mind isn't static. 00:04:17.100 --> 00:04:20.620 It learns. It develops through history. And how 00:04:20.620 --> 00:04:23.220 does it learn? This is where we have to get into 00:04:23.220 --> 00:04:26.100 the weeds of the dialectic. We do. And we need 00:04:26.100 --> 00:04:28.350 to perform an exorcism right now. If you took 00:04:28.350 --> 00:04:31.110 a Philosophy 101 class, you were probably taught 00:04:31.110 --> 00:04:34.470 that Hegel's method is thesis, antithesis, synthesis. 00:04:34.910 --> 00:04:36.930 And you're going to tell me that's wrong? It's 00:04:36.930 --> 00:04:39.930 not just wrong. It's a fabrication. Hegel almost 00:04:39.930 --> 00:04:42.509 never used those terms. That was a simplification 00:04:42.509 --> 00:04:46.250 by a critic named Chalibas. Hegel's actual movement 00:04:46.250 --> 00:04:49.449 is much more organic. And frankly, much more 00:04:49.449 --> 00:04:51.810 dangerous to your worldview. It centers on the 00:04:51.810 --> 00:04:54.610 German concept of Aufhebel. Which is untranslatable, 00:04:54.629 --> 00:04:58.209 but give it a shot. Aufhebung means three things 00:04:58.209 --> 00:05:02.449 simultaneously. To cancel, to preserve, and to 00:05:02.449 --> 00:05:05.149 lift up. That sounds like a paradox. It's how 00:05:05.149 --> 00:05:08.069 life works. Think about the process of learning 00:05:08.069 --> 00:05:10.870 a complex skill, like playing the piano. When 00:05:10.870 --> 00:05:12.889 you first start, you have to consciously think 00:05:12.889 --> 00:05:15.730 about where every finger goes. That's the first 00:05:15.730 --> 00:05:19.069 stage. As you get better, you cancel that awkward, 00:05:19.170 --> 00:05:21.449 conscious effort. You don't think about your 00:05:21.449 --> 00:05:23.740 fingers anymore. But you preserve the skill. 00:05:23.860 --> 00:05:25.939 The technique is still there, embedded in your 00:05:25.939 --> 00:05:28.519 muscles. And you are lifted up to the level of 00:05:28.519 --> 00:05:30.560 making music, where you can express emotion. 00:05:30.980 --> 00:05:33.139 You couldn't get to the music without the drills, 00:05:33.259 --> 00:05:35.959 but the music supersedes the drills. That's a 00:05:35.959 --> 00:05:38.519 lovely aesthetic metaphor. But Hegel applies 00:05:38.519 --> 00:05:40.759 this logic to history and to human suffering. 00:05:41.240 --> 00:05:45.060 He argues that truth emerges from error. He says 00:05:45.060 --> 00:05:47.199 in The Phenomenology that you can't learn to 00:05:47.199 --> 00:05:49.379 swim without getting in the water. You have to 00:05:49.379 --> 00:05:52.029 risk being wrong to find the truth. Is that not 00:05:52.029 --> 00:05:55.009 the scientific method? We fail our way to success? 00:05:55.389 --> 00:05:59.529 In science, yes. In history, failing means wars, 00:05:59.670 --> 00:06:03.250 genocides, and slavery. My issue with Alf Habing 00:06:03.250 --> 00:06:05.550 is that it functions like a philosophical magic 00:06:05.550 --> 00:06:08.670 trick. It allows Hegel to look at any atrocity 00:06:08.670 --> 00:06:11.230 and say, ah, well, that was just a necessary 00:06:11.230 --> 00:06:13.810 contradiction that the spirit had to work through 00:06:13.810 --> 00:06:16.899 to get to the next level. It justifies the means 00:06:16.899 --> 00:06:19.959 by the ends. It treats individual human lives 00:06:19.959 --> 00:06:22.459 as fuel for the engine of history. You're focusing 00:06:22.459 --> 00:06:24.660 on the coast, but you are ignoring the purchase. 00:06:25.019 --> 00:06:27.939 What is being bought with that struggle? Freedom. 00:06:28.420 --> 00:06:31.459 Hegel argues that without that friction, without 00:06:31.459 --> 00:06:34.060 that collision of opposing forces, we would be 00:06:34.060 --> 00:06:37.360 stagnant. We would be innocent, perhaps, but 00:06:37.360 --> 00:06:40.360 we would be unconscious. The true is the whole. 00:06:40.600 --> 00:06:43.019 You cannot separate the result from the process. 00:06:43.709 --> 00:06:46.250 But the process he describes relies on a very 00:06:46.250 --> 00:06:48.730 grim view of human nature. I mean, we need to 00:06:48.730 --> 00:06:50.870 talk about his most famous example of this friction, 00:06:51.110 --> 00:06:54.129 the Lord and Bondsman. Or master and servant, 00:06:54.329 --> 00:06:58.430 Herrschaft und Kneckschaft. Right. This is chapter 00:06:58.430 --> 00:07:01.449 four of the phenomenology. It's the section that 00:07:01.449 --> 00:07:05.009 set Marx and the existentialists on fire. Hegel 00:07:05.009 --> 00:07:07.930 is trying to explain how we become self -conscious. 00:07:08.129 --> 00:07:11.040 How do I know I am an I? And he doesn't say it 00:07:11.040 --> 00:07:13.040 happens by sitting in a chair and thinking, I 00:07:13.040 --> 00:07:15.819 think, therefore I am. He says it happens through 00:07:15.819 --> 00:07:19.000 a fight to the death. It happens through the 00:07:19.000 --> 00:07:23.139 desire for recognition. Honor keno. But look 00:07:23.139 --> 00:07:26.019 at the scenario. Two consciousnesses meet in 00:07:26.019 --> 00:07:28.180 the wild. They don't wave. They don't trade. 00:07:28.379 --> 00:07:30.480 They immediately try to destroy one another. 00:07:30.680 --> 00:07:34.199 Why? To prove that they are free. To prove that 00:07:34.199 --> 00:07:37.100 they value their self more than their mere biological 00:07:37.100 --> 00:07:40.399 survival. It implies that the fundamental atom 00:07:40.399 --> 00:07:44.540 of society is violence. No, it implies that the 00:07:44.540 --> 00:07:47.839 fundamental atom is social. That's the key. You're 00:07:47.839 --> 00:07:51.720 missing the twist. Yes, they fight. One gets 00:07:51.720 --> 00:07:55.339 scared of dying and submits. He becomes the bondsman. 00:07:55.480 --> 00:07:58.639 The winner becomes the Lord. But Hegel shows 00:07:58.639 --> 00:08:01.959 us that the Lord actually loses. He wins the 00:08:01.959 --> 00:08:06.220 fight but loses the war. Exactly. The Lord wants 00:08:06.220 --> 00:08:09.350 recognition. He wants to be acknowledged as a 00:08:09.350 --> 00:08:12.709 superior being. But who acknowledges him? The 00:08:12.709 --> 00:08:15.930 slave. A person he doesn't respect. A person 00:08:15.930 --> 00:08:19.110 he treats as a thing. So his victory is hollow. 00:08:19.430 --> 00:08:22.250 He's looking in a mirror that is broken. And 00:08:22.250 --> 00:08:25.509 the slave? The slave is forced to work. He has 00:08:25.509 --> 00:08:28.790 to suppress his own desires and obey. But through 00:08:28.790 --> 00:08:31.709 that work, he transforms nature. He builds a 00:08:31.709 --> 00:08:34.629 house. He plants a field. He crafts an object. 00:08:35.289 --> 00:08:37.549 He looks at the world and sees the product of 00:08:37.549 --> 00:08:40.330 his own mind standing there. He realizes that 00:08:40.330 --> 00:08:42.289 he is the one with the power to shape reality. 00:08:42.909 --> 00:08:45.210 Hegel's arguing that the path to freedom goes 00:08:45.210 --> 00:08:47.809 through service and labor, not empty domination. 00:08:48.330 --> 00:08:51.470 I agree that the psychological insight is brilliant. 00:08:51.629 --> 00:08:54.509 The idea that we need reciprocal recognition, 00:08:54.909 --> 00:08:57.889 that I can only be free if I acknowledge you 00:08:57.889 --> 00:09:01.049 are free, is the basis of all modern rights. 00:09:01.580 --> 00:09:04.519 But Hegel frames this as a historical necessity. 00:09:05.059 --> 00:09:08.159 He seems to say that slavery was a necessary 00:09:08.159 --> 00:09:11.240 phase we had to go through to learn this lesson. 00:09:11.440 --> 00:09:13.779 He says it was a phase that happened and that 00:09:13.779 --> 00:09:16.279 we learned from it. And that leads us directly 00:09:16.279 --> 00:09:20.240 to politics. Because Hegel didn't stop at two 00:09:20.240 --> 00:09:23.679 guys fighting in a field. He scaled this up to 00:09:23.679 --> 00:09:26.580 the state. And this is where he gets into, well, 00:09:26.720 --> 00:09:29.480 a lot of trouble. The philosophy of right. Yes. 00:09:30.139 --> 00:09:32.620 the book where he allegedly becomes the PR agent 00:09:32.620 --> 00:09:35.480 for the king of Prussia. He famously wrote, what 00:09:35.480 --> 00:09:38.159 is rational is actual, and what is actual is 00:09:38.159 --> 00:09:40.259 rational. One of the most maligned sentences 00:09:40.259 --> 00:09:43.220 in the history of ideas. Is it? It sounds remarkably 00:09:43.220 --> 00:09:45.700 like a command to obey. If the state exists, 00:09:46.039 --> 00:09:48.799 it is actual. If it is actual, it is rational. 00:09:49.240 --> 00:09:51.419 Therefore, if you rebel against the state, you 00:09:51.419 --> 00:09:54.440 are rebelling against reason itself. It's the 00:09:54.440 --> 00:09:57.570 ultimate conservative silencer. That is the interpretation 00:09:57.570 --> 00:09:59.769 of someone who hasn't read the rest of the book. 00:10:00.070 --> 00:10:03.730 You have to understand his terminology. For Hegel, 00:10:03.830 --> 00:10:06.549 there is a difference between existence, existence, 00:10:06.870 --> 00:10:12.450 and actuality, Wirklichkeit. A passing cloud 00:10:12.450 --> 00:10:16.750 exists. A typo in a book exists. But they aren't 00:10:16.750 --> 00:10:20.870 actual, in Hegel's sense. Actuality is the synthesis 00:10:20.870 --> 00:10:23.799 of essence and existence. It is something that 00:10:23.799 --> 00:10:26.759 is fully at work staying itself, fulfilling its 00:10:26.759 --> 00:10:29.980 purpose. When Hegel says the state is rational, 00:10:30.259 --> 00:10:33.059 he isn't talking about the specific flawed government 00:10:33.059 --> 00:10:36.679 of 1820 Berlin. He is talking about the idea 00:10:36.679 --> 00:10:40.159 of the state, the institutions, laws, and norms 00:10:40.159 --> 00:10:43.080 that make freedom possible. But he was writing 00:10:43.080 --> 00:10:45.379 checks that the Prussian reality couldn't cash. 00:10:45.639 --> 00:10:49.080 He claims the state is the actuality of the ethical 00:10:49.080 --> 00:10:52.169 idea. He distinguishes this from abstract right. 00:10:52.370 --> 00:10:55.950 Yes, abstract right is just property and contract. 00:10:56.269 --> 00:11:00.049 It's libertarianism. Stay off my lawn. Morality 00:11:00.049 --> 00:11:03.549 is subjective. I mean well. But ethical life, 00:11:03.610 --> 00:11:06.850 or sitlischkeit, is the family, civil society, 00:11:07.169 --> 00:11:10.460 and the state. Hegel argues that you cannot be 00:11:10.460 --> 00:11:14.200 free alone. You can only be free inside a rational 00:11:14.200 --> 00:11:17.340 community that gives you laws to obey. Freedom 00:11:17.340 --> 00:11:20.019 isn't the absence of constraints. It is the presence 00:11:20.019 --> 00:11:23.000 of rational constraints that you self -legislate. 00:11:23.139 --> 00:11:26.519 That is a very slippery slope. Freedom is the 00:11:26.519 --> 00:11:29.139 presence of constraints. That is the language 00:11:29.139 --> 00:11:33.159 of every authoritarian who ever lived. And let's 00:11:33.159 --> 00:11:35.399 look at who Hegel thought was capable of this 00:11:35.399 --> 00:11:38.950 rational freedom. We have to address the end 00:11:38.950 --> 00:11:41.809 of history problem. It is a schematic view of 00:11:41.809 --> 00:11:44.309 progress, yes. It's a schematic that creates 00:11:44.309 --> 00:11:47.450 a hierarchy of humanity. Hegel divides history 00:11:47.450 --> 00:11:50.950 into three big clunky epics. The Oriental world, 00:11:51.029 --> 00:11:54.269 where only one is free, the despot. The Greco 00:11:54.269 --> 00:11:56.970 -Roman world, where some are free, the citizens 00:11:56.970 --> 00:11:59.909 but not the slaves. And the Germanic Christian 00:11:59.909 --> 00:12:02.870 world, where all are free. And is that not the 00:12:02.870 --> 00:12:05.490 trajectory of history? The expansion of the circle 00:12:05.490 --> 00:12:07.870 of rights? It's a trajectory that conveniently 00:12:07.870 --> 00:12:11.129 ends with him. It suggests that 19th century 00:12:11.129 --> 00:12:13.370 Europe was the pinnacle of human development. 00:12:13.750 --> 00:12:16.750 In his anthropology, he makes claims about climate 00:12:16.750 --> 00:12:19.789 determining potential. He dismisses entire continents. 00:12:20.070 --> 00:12:23.049 And regarding slavery, while you defend his endpoint, 00:12:23.330 --> 00:12:25.490 we have to acknowledge that he viewed ancient 00:12:25.490 --> 00:12:28.730 slavery as a transitional phase that was necessary 00:12:28.730 --> 00:12:31.610 to discipline the human spirit. We have to be 00:12:31.610 --> 00:12:34.480 precise here. Heidel was writing at a time of 00:12:34.480 --> 00:12:37.419 limited anthropological knowledge, and I won't 00:12:37.419 --> 00:12:39.919 defend his prejudices, but on the philosophical 00:12:39.919 --> 00:12:42.919 point of slavery in the modern world, he was 00:12:42.919 --> 00:12:46.179 unequivocal. In The Philosophy of Right, he states 00:12:46.179 --> 00:12:49.340 that slavery is incompatible with the rational 00:12:49.340 --> 00:12:52.299 state. He didn't say it was good, he said it 00:12:52.299 --> 00:12:54.759 was a wrong, but, and this is the hard part, 00:12:54.960 --> 00:12:57.759 he viewed it as a wrong that history had to work 00:12:57.759 --> 00:13:01.740 through. Work through? Again, that cold mechanical 00:13:01.740 --> 00:13:05.340 language. My objection isn't that he was a man 00:13:05.340 --> 00:13:08.340 of his time. It's that his system provides a 00:13:08.340 --> 00:13:11.679 retroactive license for atrocity. It tells the 00:13:11.679 --> 00:13:14.440 victims of history, your suffering was just a 00:13:14.440 --> 00:13:17.600 stepping stone for our enlightenment. It is easy 00:13:17.600 --> 00:13:19.399 to say that when you're the professor in the 00:13:19.399 --> 00:13:21.840 lecture hall, not the person in the hull of the 00:13:21.840 --> 00:13:25.460 ship. I feel the weight of that. But I ask you, 00:13:25.539 --> 00:13:28.909 what is the alternative? If we reject the idea 00:13:28.909 --> 00:13:31.230 that there is reason in history, what are we 00:13:31.230 --> 00:13:35.490 left with? A slaughter bench. A pile of meaningless 00:13:35.490 --> 00:13:39.809 tragedies. Hegel offers the difficult hope that 00:13:39.809 --> 00:13:42.769 humanity is actually going somewhere. That we 00:13:42.769 --> 00:13:45.549 are learning. That the arc of the moral universe 00:13:45.549 --> 00:13:49.029 is long, but it bends towards justice. Or maybe 00:13:49.029 --> 00:13:51.929 it just bends toward power. And speaking of power, 00:13:52.070 --> 00:13:55.480 let's look at the ultimate power, God. Hegel 00:13:55.480 --> 00:13:58.000 claims to be a Lutheran. He talks about providence 00:13:58.000 --> 00:14:01.000 constantly. But I would argue his system dissolves 00:14:01.000 --> 00:14:04.480 religion entirely. Dissolves it? He places it 00:14:04.480 --> 00:14:07.899 near the very top. He places it below philosophy. 00:14:08.200 --> 00:14:10.960 And that is the kill shot. Hegel argues that 00:14:10.960 --> 00:14:14.080 absolute spirit has three modes, art, religion, 00:14:14.259 --> 00:14:17.259 and philosophy. They all look at the same truth. 00:14:17.580 --> 00:14:20.820 Art sees it in stone and paint. Religion sees 00:14:20.820 --> 00:14:24.240 it in representation, stories, images, metaphors. 00:14:24.649 --> 00:14:27.509 But philosophy? Philosophy sees it in the concept. 00:14:27.789 --> 00:14:31.509 Pure thought. Exactly. He argues that Christianity 00:14:31.509 --> 00:14:34.710 is the consummate religion because the Trinity 00:14:34.710 --> 00:14:38.409 maps onto a dialectic. God the Father is the 00:14:38.409 --> 00:14:41.549 universal. The Son is the particular. The Holy 00:14:41.549 --> 00:14:45.149 Spirit is the synthesis. He translates the mystery 00:14:45.149 --> 00:14:48.750 of faith into the logic of a syllogism. He doesn't 00:14:48.750 --> 00:14:51.820 destroy the mystery. He penetrates it. Hegel 00:14:51.820 --> 00:14:54.200 saw that the modern world was becoming disenchanted. 00:14:54.340 --> 00:14:56.740 We couldn't just believe because a priest told 00:14:56.740 --> 00:15:00.100 us to anymore. We needed to understand. He elevates 00:15:00.100 --> 00:15:02.279 religion by showing that its core dogmas are 00:15:02.279 --> 00:15:05.220 rational. The incarnation isn't just a magic 00:15:05.220 --> 00:15:07.480 trick. It's the profound truth that the infinite 00:15:07.480 --> 00:15:10.399 must become finite to know itself. God needs 00:15:10.399 --> 00:15:13.240 man just as much as man needs God. But once you 00:15:13.240 --> 00:15:16.500 explain the concept of the joke, it isn't funny. 00:15:16.820 --> 00:15:20.259 And once you explain the concept of God, it isn't 00:15:20.259 --> 00:15:23.159 worship. It's a seminar. It becomes an intellectual 00:15:23.159 --> 00:15:27.039 exercise. He rejects the Lutheran sola scriptura, 00:15:27.179 --> 00:15:29.980 scripture alone, and replaces it with ratification 00:15:29.980 --> 00:15:34.259 by thought. The system becomes the new God. I 00:15:34.259 --> 00:15:36.620 disagree. I think he saves faith for the modern 00:15:36.620 --> 00:15:38.899 intellectual. He allows you to be a believer 00:15:38.899 --> 00:15:41.320 without checking your brain at the door. I think 00:15:41.320 --> 00:15:43.700 he turns the believer into a philosopher, which 00:15:43.700 --> 00:15:46.399 is a demotion. But this brings us back to the 00:15:46.399 --> 00:15:49.259 central tension of his legacy. You have this 00:15:49.259 --> 00:15:53.000 massive totalizing system. And yet the moment 00:15:53.000 --> 00:15:55.500 he died, his followers split into two warring 00:15:55.500 --> 00:15:58.139 camps. The right Hegelians and the left Hegelians. 00:15:58.240 --> 00:16:00.740 The right Hegelians looked at the system and 00:16:00.740 --> 00:16:03.860 said, the real is the rational, so let's support 00:16:03.860 --> 00:16:07.679 the Prussian state and the church. The left Hegelians, 00:16:07.740 --> 00:16:10.480 people like Feuerbach and Marx, looked at the 00:16:10.480 --> 00:16:13.320 dialectic and said, everything that exists is 00:16:13.320 --> 00:16:16.139 doomed to perish. The dialectic demands revolution. 00:16:16.679 --> 00:16:19.100 Which proves my point. The fact that his system 00:16:19.100 --> 00:16:22.100 could spawn both conservatism and Marxism shows 00:16:22.100 --> 00:16:24.259 that it captured the total dynamic of reality. 00:16:24.679 --> 00:16:27.840 It didn't break. It evolved. The conflict between 00:16:27.840 --> 00:16:30.460 right and left is the history of the last two 00:16:30.460 --> 00:16:33.559 centuries. We are still living in the world Hegel 00:16:33.559 --> 00:16:36.539 described. Or we are still trapped in the cage 00:16:36.539 --> 00:16:40.120 he built. I don't see a cage. I see a ladder. 00:16:40.440 --> 00:16:43.379 Hegel teaches us that we are not isolated atoms. 00:16:43.620 --> 00:16:47.019 We are social historical beings. We are shaped 00:16:47.019 --> 00:16:49.559 by institutions, and we shape them in return. 00:16:49.980 --> 00:16:53.480 Reason itself has a history. If we want to understand 00:16:53.480 --> 00:16:55.779 our freedom, we have to understand the whole 00:16:55.779 --> 00:16:58.419 process that got us here. And I see a warning. 00:16:58.519 --> 00:17:01.460 I see a brilliant attempt to make sense of the 00:17:01.460 --> 00:17:04.599 world that ends up explaining away the individual. 00:17:05.039 --> 00:17:08.619 The owl of Minerva taking flight at dusk is a 00:17:08.619 --> 00:17:12.160 confession of impotence. It suggests we can only 00:17:12.160 --> 00:17:16.480 understand our cage, not break it. As Marx famously 00:17:16.480 --> 00:17:19.299 critiqued, the philosophers have only interpreted 00:17:19.299 --> 00:17:22.779 the world. The point is to change it. But you 00:17:22.779 --> 00:17:25.259 cannot change what you do not understand. That 00:17:25.259 --> 00:17:28.359 is the final lesson. Action without comprehension 00:17:28.359 --> 00:17:32.019 is just blind chaos. Hegel asks us to open our 00:17:32.019 --> 00:17:34.500 eyes to the structure of reality before we try 00:17:34.500 --> 00:17:37.839 to smash it. And he asks us to trust that the 00:17:37.839 --> 00:17:41.140 structure is benevolent. That is a leap of faith 00:17:41.140 --> 00:17:44.170 I am not willing to take. Well, whether the owl 00:17:44.170 --> 00:17:46.690 has truly taken flight or if we're still stumbling 00:17:46.690 --> 00:17:48.549 in the dark is something our listeners will have 00:17:48.549 --> 00:17:51.410 to decide. Indeed. And for those brave enough 00:17:51.410 --> 00:17:55.089 to try, the phenomenology is waiting. It's a 00:17:55.089 --> 00:17:58.630 path of despair, but it's a hell of a ride. Thank 00:17:58.630 --> 00:18:00.009 you for listening to The Debate.