Open Totality of Hegel’s Absolute Knowing

Rajabi, Mazdak

doi:10.22096/ek.2022.531522.1369

Open Totality of Hegel’s Absolute Knowing

Document Type : Research Article

Author

Mazdak Rajabi

Associate Professor, Department of Western Philosophy, Institute of Humanities and Cultural Studies, Tehran, Iran.

10.22096/ek.2022.531522.1369

Abstract

Abstract: Hegel’s absolute knowing is an immanent subjectivity since all the knowledge and human history are included within it as the absolute subjectivity. Some Hegelians stressed the sufficiency of the absolute’s totality; contrariwise, others interpreted absolute’s immanent openness in terms of ongoing negativity, which renders human history an ongoing movement. The article attempts to propose a new conception of the absolute knowing in which there is a totality of conceptuality and openness to the future not only as negativity but also as a prospective totality. It would be entitled “open totality of the absolute knowing”, and the article explains the two characteristics focusing on Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit and Hegel’s Science of Logic in addition to some crucial and prominent commentaries. My interpretation of Hegel’s absolute knowing is based on the openness of the knowing process, which is a part of my PhD thesis entitled Hegel’s Absolute: Suspension of Perspectives.

Keywords

"Totality"

"Openness"

"Absolute"

"Absolute Knowing"

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