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Hegel and Schelling: the Emptiness of Emptiness and the Love of the Divine

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Hegel and Schelling: the Emptiness of Emptiness and the Love of the Divine University of South Florida Scholar Commons Graduate Theses and Dissertations Graduate School March 2021 Hegel and Schelling: The Emptiness of Emptiness and the Love of the Divine Sean B. Gleason University of South Florida Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd Part of the Philosophy Commons, and the Religious Thought, Theology and Philosophy of Religion Commons Scholar Commons Citation Gleason, Sean B., "Hegel and Schelling: The Emptiness of Emptiness and the Love of the Divine" (2021). Graduate Theses and Dissertations. https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd/8782 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at Scholar Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Graduate Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Scholar Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Hegel and Schelling: The Emptiness of Emptiness and the Love of the Divine by Sean B. Gleason A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Philosophy College of Arts and Sciences University of South Florida Major Professor: Michael Morris, Ph.D. Alex Levine, Ph.D. Joshua Rayman, Ph.D. Mor Segev, Ph.D. Joseph P. Lawrence, Ph.D. Bruce Matthews, Ph.D. Date of Approval: March 29, 2021 Keywords: Entäußerung, Science of Logic, Weltalter, Dialectical Materialism Copyright © 2021, Sean B. Gleason ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ~”It is love that appears as the true heart of reality (das wahre Wesen).” F.W.J Schelling (78, WA 1811, Joseph P. Lawrence translation) For starters, I owe much credit for the title of my dissertation to Slavoj Žižek’s chapter, “Where There is Nothing, Read That I Love You,” in his book, Less Than Nothing. Throughout this dissertation, I reflect on the question of how God’s love may be felt while dwelling in emptiness, so to speak. From a more spiritual perspective, I developed a passion for thinking about how emptiness could bring one closer to the divine both from my Christian upbringing as well as from attending Satsang online with spiritual teacher, Sri Moojibaba. To begin with my more personal acknowledgments, I express my heartfelt appreciation to Professor Michael Morris, my PhD advisor, for his supervision of my doctoral dissertation. We shared many long phone calls during the writing process, since I was living in Massachusetts for most of the writing of this dissertation. I am grateful for all of his effort and hard work to provide me with helpful feedback. Thank you, Professor Morris. I would also like to thank all of my committee members for their helpful comments, advice, and attention to detail. I would also like to express my sincere gratitude to the USF Philosophy Department for providing a supportive, philosophical environment. A special thanks to the members of the Kant Reading Group and the Heidegger Reading Group. I would especially like to thank my fellow graduate students from USF such as Dwight Lewis, Zach Vereb, John Walsh, Bryan Mitchell, Zach Purdue, Will Parkhurst, and Simon Dutton for their friendship and many thoughtful conversations. I am also very grateful for all of the administrative assistance provided by Darlene Corcoran during my time at USF. I would also like to thank my former colleagues at Framingham State University, Professors Joseph D’Andrea and William Healey III. Thank you, Joe and Bill, for the many engaging philosophical discussions. I am also deeply indebted to my professors from the College of the Holy Cross in the German and Philosophy Departments. I would especially like to thank Professor Joseph P. Lawrence. Professor Lawrence was my undergraduate Honors Thesis advisor. Aside from a mentor, he is also a true friend. Professor Lawrence inspired me to further pursue my passion for Philosophy in his “Modern Philosophy” course during my sophomore year of college. I cannot express enough gratitude for his countless inspiring lectures that helped me to cultivate a love of wisdom. Perhaps most importantly of all, Professor Lawrence was always open to listen to me, even if I arrived at a thought that may have seemed unusual or different. In addition, I would like to thank Roselyne Kattar for her wisdom and friendship. She always encouraged me and helped me to believe in myself throughout the writing process. Roselyne also guided me on how to connect to my best self and to live with courage. I am also thankful for my friends from college and high school: Samir Nomani, Chase Padusniak, Timothy Nowak, John Dobbins, Eugene Rush, and Matthew Robinson. Samir, thank you for the many thought-provoking intellectual discussions. Chase and Tim, thank you for looking over earlier versions of my dissertation manuscript. John, thank you for being a great college roommate for three years. Gene, thank you for your unique sense of humor – I truly appreciate it. Matt, thank you for being a compassionate friend and a good listener. Thank you all for your genuine friendship. Also, thank you to my many teachers from Ashland High School. I would like to give a special thank you to Ms. Alisha Egan for introducing me to thinkers such as Tolstoy, Thoreau, and Camus during English literature class in high school. Last but not least, I express my deep love and gratitude to my parents, John and Kathy Gleason, to my sister, Kelly, to her husband, Clinton, to my niece, Ava, and to my newborn nephew, Archie. Mom and Dad, thank you for your unconditional love and continued support. I know that you are my two greatest fans, and you are always in my corner. Kelly and Clinton, thank you for always encouraging me to pursue my dreams. TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Abbreviations ..................................................................................................................... iv Abstract ............................................................................................................................................v Introduction ......................................................................................................................................1 0.1) Introduction to My Argument ......................................................................................1 0.2) How is Thought Related to Being? ...............................................................................3 0.3) The Fundamental Movement at Work in Hegel’s Metaphysics ...................................9 0.4) Hegel’s Metaphysics of “Transcendence-In-Immanence” .........................................11 0.5) A Brief Review of Some Traditional Interpretations of Hegel ..................................13 0.5.1) Hegel as Primarily a Thinker of Identity (or System) .................................15 0.5.2) Hegel as Primarily a Thinker of Difference (or Freedom) ..........................21 0.5.3) Hegel as a Thinker of Both Identity and Difference (Both System and Freedom, taken together, in a precise sense) .............................................22 0.6) Entäußerung: God’s Self-Emptying and Hegel’s account of the Absolute ................24 0.7) Schelling and Hegel on das Unvordenkliche ..............................................................26 0.8) Hegel of the Science of Logic and Schelling of the Ages of the World ......................29 0.9) The Overall Structure of My Argument .....................................................................30 Chapter One: Absolute Knowing and the Emptiness of Spirit in Hegel’s Phenomenology ..........32 1.1) Introduction ................................................................................................................32 1.1.1) Two Versions of the “Knowing of Unknowing” .........................................36 1.2) Absolute Knowing as a Knowing of God’s Self-Sacrificial Nature ...........................37 1.3) Hegel’s Schellingian Insight .......................................................................................37 1.4) Spirit as both Subject and Substance (and also neither mere Subject nor Substance) ....................................................................................................................39 1.5) The “Identity” of (In)completeness ............................................................................41 1.6) The Self-Sacrificial Nature of the Notion ...................................................................43 1.7) Living Spirit as Both Substance and Subject ..............................................................48 1.8) “The Labor of the Negative” ......................................................................................50 1.9) “God is Love”: Hegel on the Subject-Predicate Structure of Language ....................53 1.10) The Absolute as “a Result” .......................................................................................56 1.11) Spirit’s “Divestment” as the Source of Hegel’s Science ..........................................60 1.12) Conclusion ................................................................................................................62 Chapter Two: Pure Emptiness and the Project of Hegel’s Science of Logic .................................65 2.1) Introduction ...............................................................................................................65 2.2) On the Unity of Form and Content in the Logic .........................................................72 2.3) On the Relation Between Absolute Knowing and Pure Being ...................................73
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