/lit/ - Literature

Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit Part 6
Previous threads >>15662877
The Journey of the Human Lifeform

>Philosophy is to meet this need,
>not by opening up the fast-locked nature of substance,
>and raising this to self-consciousness,
>not by bringing consciousness out of its chaos back to an order based on thought,
>nor to the simplicity of the Notion,
>but rather by running together what thought has put asunder,
>by suppressing the differentiations of the Notion
>and restoring the feeling of essential being:
>in short, by providing edification rather than insight.
Hegel says that philosophy/science is useful in opening the 'fast-locked nature of substance' or in other words discovering new useful tools that help us unlock once closed off areas of the world and universe, however philosophy/science CANNOT replace the Absolute by simply discovering new useful tools, nor can philosophy/science order the gibberish by itself and hope to continue progress (for instance, meet the need of post-atheism) without the grounding (soil) of the Absolute.

But rather what philosophy/science CAN do is repair work, by first being honest with itself, "running together what thought has put asunder." In other words, Hegel is saying stop using reason to 'de-bunk God', and instead use reason to show that reason, itself, is just another science. And secondly, it can repair itself by "restoring the feeling of essential being" meaning building or growing a bridge (restoration) spanning itself and the Absolute, setting itself up for a union with the Absolute.