Hegel on the Absolute, with a Blumenbergian Twist

Abstract

This article does not seek to settle the question of the meaning and significance of Hegel’s notion of the Absolute. Rather, it seeks to shed new light on the possibility of a relationship with the Absolute, that is, the possibility that the Absolute is something – some entity that we, as subjects, can have a real relation to. To make my case for the plausibility of my reading of the Absolute, I begin by offering an interpretation of Hegel’s “System Fragment.” I then attempt to add substance to the idea of such a relationship by adducing the thought of Hans Blumenberg, a strikingly ‘non-Hegelian’ thinker. After showing that Blumenberg, too, struggled with the question of our relation to the absolute, albeit in a completely different context, I argue that Blumenberg’s reading of the absolute, as a backdrop against which humankind persistently positions itself, suggests a meaningful new direction in the ongoing efforts to interpret the Hegelian Absolute.