The Bonds of absolute Freedom. Traces of Abraham in Hegel’s Reading of the French Revolution
- Author(s)
- Daniel Kuran
- Abstract
This paper engages with the thesis that the figure of Abraham functions as a recurring “grounding-antitype” of the modern ideas of freedom and autonomy (Sherwood 2014; Sherwood/Blanton 2021). It then applies this thesis in a close reading of passages from Hegel’s early writings as well as from his chapter on “Absolute Freedom and Terror” in the Phenomenology of Spirit. In his early writings, Hegel portrays Abraham as a figure who severs the bonds of community; an act which he describes as a mechanical, non-dialectical negation, exemplary of heteronomy as opposed to freedom. This paper, however, demonstrates that the same non-dialectical negation reappears at the heart of modern freedom as exhibited in Hegel’s description of the French Revolution. Far from reflecting historical contingency alone, the Enlightenment’s attempt to overcome faith reveals a tabula rasa within the core of Hegel’s thought, which bears an Abrahamic trace. This negativity threatens to break the bonds of spirit as it renders the intertwining of singularity and universality, the very condition of the possibility of community, impossible. The autonomy of enlightened reason turns into an auto-immune rationality, which inherits the element of rupture from Abraham. The conclusion links the analysis of Hegel’s reading of absolute freedom in the context of faith and enlightenment to Derrida’s thought of a mechanical division between faith and knowledge (FK § 29).
- Organisation(s)
- Research Centre Religion and Transformation, Department of Systematic Theology and Ethics
- Publication date
- 2021
- Peer reviewed
- Yes
- Austrian Fields of Science 2012
- 603113 Philosophy, 603116 Political philosophy, 603118 Philosophy of religion, 603206 Fundamental theology
- Keywords
- ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Philosophy
- Portal url
- https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/the-bonds-of-absolute-freedom-traces-of-abraham-in-hegels-reading-of-the-french-revolution(379289e0-8365-481c-900e-e5c1d8972e1c).html