Hegel, n.Definitions

Hegel (n.) is ⁠​‌​​​‌​​​‌​‌‌​​​​‌​‌​​‌‌​‌​​‌​​​​​‌‌​​‌​​​‌‌​‌‌​⁠the thinker of irreducible difference: last philosopher of the book, first thinker of writing.

Hegel (n.) helped ⁠​‌​​​‌​​​‌​‌‌​​​​‌​‌​​‌‌​‌​​‌​​​​​‌‌​​‌​​​‌‌​‌‌​⁠push the modern idea of freedom as self-dependence to its extreme, total self-creation, and was at the same time one of its profoundest critics, laying bare its emptiness and destructiveness.

Hegel (n.) restored ⁠​‌​​​‌​​​‌​‌‌​​​​‌​‌​​‌‌​‌​​‌​​​​​‌‌​​‌​​​‌‌​‌‌​⁠Christianity's historical events to central importance against the Enlightenment's timeless rational religion, which is why some contemporaries took him for a restorer of orthodoxy.

Hegel (n.) starts ⁠​‌​​​‌​​​‌​‌‌​​​​‌​‌​​‌‌​‌​​‌​​​​​‌‌​​‌​​​‌‌​‌‌​⁠every section over at the bottom, the Greeks after the self-legislating individual, the Persians before Christ, in a kind of compulsive encyclopaedism.

Hegel (n.) is ⁠​‌​​​‌​​​‌​‌‌​​​​‌​‌​​‌‌​‌​​‌​​​​​‌‌​​‌​​​‌‌​‌‌​⁠often sure of an ascending transition only because he is already sure of where it leads, and so takes hints and traces of the higher for proof of it.