Philosophy ETDs

Publication Date

Spring 5-11-2024

Abstract

Through an intensive examination of the second volume of G.W.F. Hegel’s oft-neglected Berlin Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion, I demarcate and elucidate a Hegelian theory of divine revelation. The second volume of these Lectures advances a series of configurations for religious consciousness through which absolute spirit passes in order to gain awareness of itself in the register of representation. While Hegel identifies divinity with absolute spirit in its moments and movements indicative of an odyssey, Hegel also ventures to painstaking lengths for the sake of authentically capturing how world-historical religions respectively portray(ed) the divine. Such a distinction between inward-facing and outward-facing perspectives on divine revelation comprises the foundation of the proposed Hegelian account. I intend to justify the grounding of Hegel’s religious phenomenology in the matrices of inward-facing and outward-facing, historico-logical forces contra the prevailing hermeneutic positions that either deny the existence of a stable ground or misidentify it.

Degree Name

Philosophy

Level of Degree

Doctoral

Department Name

Philosophy

First Committee Member (Chair)

Adrian Johnston

Second Committee Member

Brent Kalar

Third Committee Member

Iain Thomson

Fourth Committee Member

Steven Crowell

Fifth Committee Member

Todd McGowan

Language

English

Keywords

German Idealism; G.W.F. Hegel; Phenomenology of Religion; Divine Revelation

Document Type

Dissertation

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Available for download on Friday, May 15, 2026

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