Qustions on Hegel ‘s Art and Religion
1. Why, according to Hegel, is art superior to the works of nature? From what "universal and absolute
need" does it spring, and how, does that need link it to "all acting and knowing"?
2. How does Hegel moderate between those who say that art is merely a skill, and those who say that art is
entirely a production of genius and not "a product of general human activity"?
3. What is the first or "symbolic form of art" In what lies its chief value? What "double defect" leads to its
giving way to the classical stage of art? How does the second or "classical art-form" do away with the
defects of the first form? How does it achieve such progress? How does the third or "romantic form of
art" solve the problem with Classical art? How does its success amount to "the self-transcendence of art
in the form of art itself"?
4. Nonetheless, what defect does Classical art's success in relating Idea and shape lead to? How does Hegel
define "spirit", and how, according to Hegel, must Classical artists have conceived of spirit when they
represented it in "sensuously concrete form"? Again, how does romantic art's success also lead it to
reach its point of failure? How is this problem similar to that of symbolic art? But what, according to
Hegel, is "the essential difference" between the respective failures?
5. Explain how Hegel's attitude towards the link between humanity and nature compares to Kant's, such as
Kant’s “Subjective Universality,” “ Beauty and the Form of Purposiveness,” or “Genius and Taste.”
6. Compare Hegel’s and Schelling’s accounts of art’s ability to present the highest kind of knowledge.
Reconstruct and critically assess Hegel’s idea that art can no more be thought capable of the presentation
of the highest kind of knowledge. Reconstruct and critically assess Schelling’s idea that only art can
make possible the completion of the philosophical project and presentation of the highest kind of
knowledge.
7. Is the claim that Hegel's philosophy and Hegel's religion have the same content? Is Hegel's romantic
idealism another version of a "natural religion?" If so, does it have a cognitive as well as a moral
character? Can it be used to show a religious dimension of thought and feeling in literature and poetry?
How? Explain Hegel's theory of "alienation" as a result of "bad" religion. How and why did "bad
religion" project an idea of a heaven?
8. Explain Marx's critique of Hegel's claim to have religion completely understood. Why did Marx react so
strongly? What did Marx mean by “religion is the people’s opium,” "religious distress is the heart of a
heartless world, a sigh of an oppressed creature, a spirit in a spiritless situation?" What is cognitive here?
9. In his Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion, Hegel says: “Here in the Philosophy of Religion it is
more especially God, reason in fact, that is the object; for God is essentially rational, rationality, which
as Spirit is in and for itself. Now in speculating philosophically upon reason, we investigate knowledge,
only we do it in such a way as to imply that we do not suppose we would want to complete this
investigation beforehand outside of the object; on the contrary, the knowledge of reason is precisely the
object with which we are concerned. It is of the very essence of Spirit to be for Spirit. That is just what
Spirit is, and this consequently implies that finite spirit has been posited, and the relation of finite spirit,
of finite reason to the divine, originates of itself within the Philosophy of Religion itself, and must be
treated of there, and indeed in the very place where it first originates. It is this which constitutes the
difference between a science and conjectures about a science; the latter are accidental; in so far, however,
as they are thoughts, which relate to the matter itself, they must be included in its treatment, and they are
in this case no longer mere chance bubbles of thought.” Do you agree him? Explain.
Questions on Philosophy
1. If as Hegel says "philosophy is the history of philosophy", then are all philosophical claims historically
conditioned and liable to reevaluation? If you incline to an Hegelian or developmental view of
disagreement, how do you explain the fact that a very large majority of philosophers think they are
giving the truth once and for all? Are they all self-deceived? If so, how can this be explained? Or is it
not in fact true that most philosophers think they are giving the truth once and for all? Some scholars
indicate a wish to update Hegel for the 21st century. Does that mean removing all traces of his
(presumably) un-scientific objective idealism?
2. Hegel believes that philosophy cannot give moral or political advice, since it always comes on the scene
too late (spreading its wings only with the falling of the dusk). If true, would this rule out the primacy of
the practical for philosophy? What does Hegel himself say?
3. Hegel on the foot as standard of shoemaking, reason as the standard of philosophizing; not all who have
feet are expert cobblers; not all who have reason are expert philosophers (Lesser Logic, 5;
Phenomenology, 67.) Can philosophy be "expertly" done and remain exoteric? If one denies that there is
a special kind of expertise for philosophy, is one thereby committed to relativism? What else is required
beyond "reason"?
4. To what extent are philosophers responsible for the use or misuse of their work? Discuss the case of
Hegel ( Hegel, Plato and Nietzsche were all used by Nazi scholars to justify the Nazi program).
5. As many philosophies have implications for the use of language and compare them on the relation
between their style and content (e.g. Aristotle on systematic equivocation; Locke on general terms; Kant
on definition, examples, or prosaic language), Hegel emphasizes “picture-language”. How well did he
own writing live up to, abide by, or embody his views? What are the differences between Kant's
reluctance to use examples, and Hegel's reluctance to use picture-language? Explain.
6. Compare the visions of philosophy as a science of two or more philosophers, e.g. Kant, Hegel, Husserl.
What model of science was used? How appropriate was it? If inappropriate, what dimensions of
philosophy did it violate or ignore?
7. Who was more right, Pythagoras for humbly calling himself a mere lover of wisdom (philosopher), or
Hegel for saying that the time has come to go beyond love to the actual attainment and science of
wisdom?
8. The term "natural consciousness" is used in Hegel, "natural standpoint" in Husserl and other
phenomenologists. Do philosophers assume too hastily that there is a "natural consciousness" or nonphilosophical mind? What are the differences between the disagreements among philosophers and the
disagreements among other folk?
9. For Hegel, truth is not propositional, and philosophy propositional only as means, or only sometime.
What different ways are there to be non-cognitive and how do we decide to favor some over others? :
10. In Hegel is there a distinction between essence and existence such that there is a truth about something
that is independent of its empirical manifestation? If so, is it fair to call this essence “objectively ideal?”
Is Hegel without that objective idealism still Hegelian? In terms of science, it is possible to speak of a
truth that is in- dependent of contingency? These questions leave open two others you might want to
address: a) What- ever their merit, do they really come to grips with Hegel? b) What relevance do the
answers have for our understanding of world history?