Four Questions and a Funeral: Hegel on Spirit’s Self-Division and New Life

An introductory talk given at a Penn State discussion on Hegel.

Introductory remarks and a series of questions that were raised for a discussion about what Hegel is doing in paragraphs 669-71 of the Phenomenology of Spirit, with reference back to paragraphs 444 and 650-5. Broadly speaking, the issues concern the place and the nature of that self-consciousness that Hegel describes as the universal and mediating element in which spirit comes to itself. I also ask about the applicability of his dialectic of forgiveness to a particular situation today.

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