Abstract

“Spirit,” Hegel writes in par. 389 of the Encyclopaedia, “is the existent truth of matter—the truth that matter itself has no truth.” The same claim is made in more understandable form in the Zusatz which follows: “the material, which lacks independence in the face of spirit, is freely pervaded by the latter which overarches this its Other,” reducing this Other “to an ideal moment and to something mediated.” Philosophers who have written on Hegel will recognize these passages as ones which call for a fair amount of exegesis. The issue I want to raise in this paper is rather different: just what argument does Hegel supply to establish that Spirit indeed is, as claimed, “the truth of,” or central to, the material world? What reason is given to show that we readers should agree that “the material has absolutely no meaning beyond that of being a negative over against spirit and over against itself?” I shall begin by considering one of the clearer answers to this question offered in recent literature on Hegel. I then shall discuss at much greater length how this answer requires to be supplemented.