Hegel Beyond the Ideal of Idealism

Citation

Hass AW (2013) Hegel Beyond the Ideal of Idealism. In: Jasper D & Wright D (eds.) Theological Reflection and the Pursuit of Ideals: Theology, Human Flourishing and Freedom. Farnham: Ashgate, pp. 131-146. http://www.ashgate.com/isbn/9781409452393

Abstract
This article explores the possibility of an "ethics of negation" in light of a return to Hegel seen in recent theology, philosophy and theory. It argues that, in rethinking Hegel beyond Hegel, by rethinking the importance of the role negation plays at the very core of Hegel's dialectical system or logic, a new ethical sense might emerge. This sense is worked out principally from the Science of Logic, and from Hegel's conceptualisation of the term "ought" in the determination of Being, where a coincidentia oppositorum is in force between "is" and "is not". The ought forms a double-relation both by cancelling each side out and by creating each side, simultaneously. It also creates outwardness within, and inwardness without. This regimen of contradiction is then used to suggest three ways an ethics of negation might take shape: through critique, through a breakdown of self-interest that pluralises singularity, and through a responsive and responsible creativity.

Keywords
Hegel; Idealism; negation; ethics

People

Dr Andrew Hass

Reader, Religion