ABSTRACT

The younger Hegel sought to find an immanent way between three influences: first, Enlightenment and its wedding of rational science and moral autonomy; second, Greece, in the glory of its holistic aesthetic culture; third, Christianity, questioned by some for being a 'positive', that is, authority-based, religion, and yet incontrovertibly there to be dealt with as an influential cultural and spiritual power. From the Kantian system and its highest completion author expect a revolution in Germany. It will proceed from principles that are present and need to be elaborated and applied to all hitherto existing knowledge': thus Hegel in a letter to Schelling. Kant accepts modernity at a higher level of intellectual, moral and spiritual sophistication than previous ages. Intellectually, the developments and successes of modern science are for him incontestable. Christianity proclaims that the spirit has come among us, first shown in the singular human, Jesus, thereafter known, for Hegel, beyond singularity in the community that determines its own freedom.