
Contents
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1. Introduction 1. Introduction
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2. Background Matters 2. Background Matters
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A. Hegel’s Reconstruction of Philosophy of Religion A. Hegel’s Reconstruction of Philosophy of Religion
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B. The Historical Controversy over the Personhood of God B. The Historical Controversy over the Personhood of God
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C. Terminological Issues C. Terminological Issues
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3. A Center Hegelian Position: K. L. Michelet 3. A Center Hegelian Position: K. L. Michelet
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4. Hegel on Person and Personhood 4. Hegel on Person and Personhood
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5. Types of Freedom in the Philosophy of Right 5. Types of Freedom in the Philosophy of Right
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6. Recognition in the Philosophy of Spirit 6. Recognition in the Philosophy of Spirit
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7. The Universal Self-Consciousness in the Philosophy of Spirit 7. The Universal Self-Consciousness in the Philosophy of Spirit
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4 Hegel on Persons and Personhood
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Published:January 2017
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Abstract
First, an account of the concept as articulated totality whose members are both irreducible and inseparable, in order to render plausible Hegel’s grounding of personhood in the concept that constitutes the ontological proof. The inseparability of concept and being constitutes the ontological proof of the Logic. Personhood for Hegel is not an atomistic conception, or a solipsistic being-for-self only. The latter is a one-sided distortion and perversion. Personhood is a social unity in and through difference, a unity of being-for-self and being-for-other in freedom. For Hegel, freedom means being at home with oneself in another (bei sich im Andere zu sein). Such a freedom in union with other is achieved in a process of mutual–reciprocal recognition. This free unity in and through difference is roughly equivalent to what Hegel means by Spirit (Geist) and ethical life (Sittlichkeit). Second, an account of the division and break-up of the Hegelian School into right-wing and left-wing over the issue of the personhood of God. Right Hegelians interpreted divine personhood to mean an abstract otherworldly divine person, a cosmic monarch, that resembles traditional theism. This view overlooks Hegel’s critique, that every attempt to separate infinite from the finite makes the infinite itself finite, or a spurious infinite. The left Hegelians took this critique as the occasion to read personhood as a mere metaphor, to read theology out of the Logic, and to interpret it simply as method. The result is a reduction of both religion and philosophy to anthropology, which ignores Hegel’s criticism of such atheological views. Both right- and left-Hegelian positions are interpretive failures. Third, the Center Hegelian position, articulated by K. L. Michelet’s Die Persönlichkeit Gottes (1841), is almost entirely unknown and unrepresented in contemporary discussions, yet it is the closest to Hegel’s doctrine. Michelet is clear that the personhood of God does not mean that God is a finite person, but it is much more than an empty metaphor and the anthropological reduction of religion served up by the left Hegelians. The present work expounds, criticizes, and extends Michelet’s Center Hegelian position.
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