ABSTRACT
The Latin term absolutus is the past participle of absolvere (to loosen or detach from, to absolve or acquit), signifying of a thing that it is perfect, self-contained, unconditioned, or complete in itself.1 The term does not appear in Christian Molbech’s 1833 Danish lexicon, but it was already well established in the philosophical vocabulary of the modern period. Immanuel Kant, for example, defined the absolute as that which is valid in all respects and without limitation, while Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel used the term substantively (das Absolute) to refer to the ultimate, unconditioned reality.
