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Hegel's Lectures on the History of Philosophy: Volume 3 (of 3) — Georg Hegel — John Shaqi
Hegel's Lectures on the History of Philosophy: Volume 3 (of 3)

Georg Hegel · en
3. The More Important of the Followers of Fichte               506
       _a._ Friedrich von Schlegel                                  507
       _b._ Schleiermacher                                          508
       _c._ Novalis                                                 510
       _d._ Fries, Bouterweck, Krug                                 510

  D. Schelling                                                      512

  E. Final Result                                                   545

  INDEX                                                             555

  CORRIGENDA IN VOLS. I. AND II.                                    570




PART TWO

PHILOSOPHY OF THE MIDDLE AGES




INTRODUCTION


The first period embraces a space of one thousand years—from Thales, 550
B.C., to Proclus, who died 485 A.D., and until the disappearance of pagan
philosophy as an outward institution, 529 A.D. The second period extends
to the sixteenth century, and thus again embraces a thousand years, to
pass over which we must provide ourselves with seven-leagued boots. While
Philosophy has hitherto found its place in the religion of the heathen,
from this time on it has its sphere within the Christian world; for
Arabians and Jews have only to be noticed in an external and historic way.

1. Through the Neo-Platonic philosophy we have come into quite familiar
acquaintance with the Idea of Christianity, as the new religion which
has entered into the world. For the Neo-Platonic philosophy has as its
essential principle the fact that the Absolute is determined as spirit in
a concrete way, that God is not a mere conception. Although the Absolute
is Thought, it must, in order to be true, be concrete in itself and not
abstract; in what we have just seen we have, then, the first appearance
of the absolutely existent spirit. But in spite of their profound and
true speculation, the Neo-Platonists still had not proved their doctrine
that the Trinity is the truth, for there is lacking to it the form of
inward necessity. The Neo-Platonists begin from the One that determines
itself, that sets a limit to itself from which the determinate proceeds;
this, however, is itself an immediate method of presentation, and it is
this that makes such philosophers as Plotinus and Proclus so tiresome.
Undoubtedly dialectic considerations enter in, in which the opposites
which are conceived as absolute are shown to be null; but this dialectic
is not methodical, but occurs only disconnectedly. The principle of
retroversion and comprehension found with the Neo-Platonists is that
of substantiality generally, but because subjectivity is lacking, this
idea of Spirit is deficient in one moment, the moment of actuality, of
the point which draws all moments into one, and which thereby becomes
immediate unity, universality, and Being. To them spirit is thus not
individual spirit; and this deficiency is made good through Christianity,