The intention behind writing the present essay on the Difference Between Fichte’s and Schelling’s Systems of Philosophy was to find the guiding idea that, acting as a thread of Ariadne, could...Show moreThe intention behind writing the present essay on the Difference Between Fichte’s and Schelling’s Systems of Philosophy was to find the guiding idea that, acting as a thread of Ariadne, could connect Hegel’s early philosophical project with what across the following argument will be referred to as the paradox of temporality. Deliberately, the above title refers to ‘temporality’, and not to ‘Time’. Temporality is not a term employed by Hegel in his writings. In a strict sense, what Hegel explicitly refers to as Time is limited to natural Time, and any other sense that might be associated with a temporality beyond natural Time is understood by Hegel as History —not as temporality. In Hegel’s works, Time and History pertain to the different realms of Nature and Spirit. Nevertheless, at the same time, for Hegel Nature and Spirit constitute instances in the unfolding of the Absolute Idea. Far from being a merely pure or abstract form, the Absolute Idea exists and becomes concrete as both realms. Consequently, beyond the letter of Hegelian philosophy, there is a common element to ‘Time’ and ‘History’, in that they both are the existing logical figure of finitude, or of ‘that which has its negation out of itself’ . The central claim of the present essay is that, in Hegel’s philosophy, there is this larger and contradictory logic connecting ‘Time’ and ‘History’ (a paradox of temporality), and that the paradoxical nature of this logic can be explained by an early concept found in the Difference: the notion of absolute identity. Therefore, the following argument will consider two main questions. Firstly: what are the main aspects of the contradiction of temporality in Nature and in Spirit? Secondly: how does Hegel’s early notion of absolute identity account for this paradox of temporality?Show less
