Abstract

Many of Hegel’s characteristic ideas came from the Enlightenment. We ought therefore to find much instruction from his own critique of that movement. Would such a critique of his be self-defeating? Only in the most superficial sense. Rather, it would be entirely consistent with his notion of self-consciousness : namely, that the self becomes what it is in self-awareness. Hegel’s fulfillment of his indebtedness to the Enlightenment would thus necessarily entail his thoroughgoing and self-conscious critique of it.