The metaphilosophical implications of Hegel´s conception of absolute idealism as the true philosophy

FERREIRO, HÉCTOR

The Relevance of Hegels Concept of Philosophy: From Classical German Philosophy to Contemporary Metaphilosophy

Bloomsbury Academic

Lugar: Londres; Año: 2021; p. 75 - 90

At the end of the Chapter on "Existence" in the Science of Logic (1832) Hegel claims that "every philosophy is essentially idealism or at least has idealism for its principle, and the question then is only how far this principle is carried out". Along this line, Hegel conceives of absolute idealism as the philosophical system that reveals, by formulating it adequately, what the precedent philosophies, mostly unknowingly, tried to develop, namely a general theory about reality based on the principle of the unity of being and thought. Inasmuch as absolute idealism expounds as its own internal development the process of the identification of being and thought, it makes explicit the latently idealist theses present in all former philosophies. Thus, according to Hegel absolute idealism is the only philosophical system that is able to understand what human beings are actually doing when they do philosophy.