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6 - Hegel

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 November 2018

Graham Oppy
Affiliation:
Monash University, Victoria
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Summary

Hegel resists Kant’s criticism of Anselm, but his main concern is to repair Spinoza’s deficient account of nature, which, owing to the passivity of ‘substance’, left it in the precarious position of a collection of contingent ‘modes’ and not genuinely independent. Hence, Hegel regarded Spinoza as an acosmist, not as an atheist. Hegel avoided acosmism by replacing Spinoza’s substance with a ‘subject’, the categorial system expounded in his Logic, the all-embracing ‘Concept’ with enough dynamism to generate, or ‘release’, nature, a nature that is genuinely independent, while nevertheless structured by the concept that gave rise to it. This is an ontological argument of sorts, since it proceeds from a concept to an existence claim. The argument is obscure, as is its relevance to God. However, Hegel’s primary concern is not to prove the existence of nature, or even that of God, but to show that the existence of God is compatible with the real existence of the world, even if God is not dualistically distinct from the world. The drastic philosophical refurbishment to which Hegel subjects the conception of God makes it plausible, though not obligatory, to regard him as an atheist.
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Ontological Arguments , pp. 121 - 138
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2018

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  • Hegel
  • Edited by Graham Oppy, Monash University, Victoria
  • Book: Ontological Arguments
  • Online publication: 01 November 2018
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316402443.007
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  • Hegel
  • Edited by Graham Oppy, Monash University, Victoria
  • Book: Ontological Arguments
  • Online publication: 01 November 2018
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316402443.007
Available formats
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To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Hegel
  • Edited by Graham Oppy, Monash University, Victoria
  • Book: Ontological Arguments
  • Online publication: 01 November 2018
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316402443.007
Available formats
×