Hegel’s dialectic attempts to synthesize the Absolute Spirit through the development of art, religion, and philosophy, but his system fails to achieve a complete dialectical unity and remains unfinished, becoming a philosophical challenge for later generations.
Thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. This refers to the logical structure of dialectic. Hegel is the most famous person who conducted philosophical arguments according to the dialectic. Dialectic is not characterized by the parallelism of three categories of equal status, but by the convergent upward movement of two opposing categories toward harmonious unification. This dialectic is not just a method of philosophical argumentation; it is deeply embedded in our way of thinking and worldview. For Hegel, dialectic is not only a way of arguing, but also a way of being. In other words, the internal structure of the world’s fundamental order, the Idea, and the way it is manifested as spatial and temporal reality are also dialectical, so that Idea and reality form a single system, and philosophical arguments that reveal the principles of these two dimensions must also have a dialectical systematicity.
Hegel also tries to treat aesthetics within a thoroughly dialectical system. For him, the object of aesthetics, art, like religion and philosophy, is a form of the ‘absolute spirit’. The absolute spirit refers to that part of the human psyche that recognizes absolute truth, the Idea. Art, religion, and philosophy share the same absolute truth, but are distinguished by differences in the form of perception. The three forms of absolute spirit are intuition, representation, and reason. ‘Intuition’ is the intellect that sensually perceives a given material object, ‘representation’ is the intellect that conjures up an image from within regardless of the presence or absence of a material object, and ‘reason’ is the purely logical intellect that grasps an object through concepts. The three forms are defined as the “intuitive absolute spirit,” the “representative absolute spirit,” and the “thinking absolute spirit,” respectively. According to Hegel, the exteriority of intuition and the interiority of representation are synthesized in thinking, and correspondingly, the objectivity of art and the subjectivity of religion are synthesized in philosophy.
The difference between the forms leads to a significant difference in the level of perception of the content. For Hegel, absolute truth, the content of the Absolute Spirit, is essentially logical and rational. Since art intuits this content, religion expresses it, and philosophy thinks about it, there is a gradation between these three forms: art is the rudimentary, religion the developing, and philosophy the mature Absolute Spirit. Thus, in the progression of art-religion-philosophy, the only absolute spirit that is clearly dependent on the highest intellect is philosophy, and the time when art can function as an absolute spirit is limited to the distant past, when humanity’s universal intellect was undeveloped.
Hegel’s philosophical system is not merely a theoretical explanation, but an elaborate work of art in itself. His philosophy provides deep insights into how the human mind seeks and perceives truth at each stage of art, religion, and philosophy. In particular, the progression from art to philosophy mirrors the development of the human spirit, which in turn is closely linked to the development of human history. Hegel understood the development of the human spirit as a historical process, in which each stage evolves in a way that overcomes the limitations of the previous stage and creates a new synthesis.
The fascination of the dialectic lies in its synthesis. The category of synthesis cannot end with the unilateral victory of one of the two opposing categories, nor can it emerge as a neutralized state in which the distinctive essential rules of the two categories are extinguished. Synthesis is achieved by the organic harmonization of the essential rules of both categories, resulting in a qualitatively elevated and supreme category. This synthesis is the essence of dialectic, which takes it to a new level, and it is through it that philosophical thought is constantly developing and deepening. This is what Hegel emphasized as the excellence of dialectic. Therefore, it was his philosophical plan to formulate a rigorous and coherent academic system optimized for the principles of dialectics. But can his works be considered to have fulfilled this plan without any flaws? As far as aesthetics is concerned, the answer is not easy.
The strategy of organizing the forms of intellect in the order of intuition, representation, and reason, and the absolute spirit in the order of art, religion, and philosophy, seems on the surface to be a typical organization according to the dialectical model. However, when we look at the actual content, it is clear that in the process from intuition to reason, externality is gradually erased and internality is gradually strengthened and perfected, and in the process from art to philosophy, objectivity is gradually erased and subjectivity is gradually strengthened and perfected, but a true dialectical synthesis is not achieved. The essence of the exteriority of intuition and the objectivity of art is first and foremost sensory perceptibility, and these key elements are completely erased in his synthesis.
To be faithful to the dialectic, Hegel would have had to add the Absolute Spirit, the stage in which the complete subjectivity achieved in philosophy is re-objectified. Art is a strong candidate for the “after philosophy” position. Indeed, many works of art can only be explained through the medium of ‘thought’, and this is something that Hegel himself, who had a richer artistic experience than anyone else, was well aware of. This discrepancy between method and philosophical system is all the more disappointing. The completion of the dialectical synthesis is not the end of philosophical thought, but only in a new integrative phase afterward.
Thus, Hegel’s system remains unfinished, and subsequent scholars of his philosophy must continue to expand dialectical thought to address this unfinished task. The complete synthesis of the Absolute Spirit through the interaction of art, religion, and philosophy is still an ongoing philosophical task. In this process, we need to go beyond the framework of dialectical thought as set forth by Hegel and attempt new insights and syntheses. This will not only lead to philosophical progress, but also to a deeper understanding of our lives and the world.
