Hegel’s Self-Emptying Subject

Abstract

In this article our aim is to understand Hegel's philosophy from the point of view of the Philosophy of Religion. For this, we strive to explain the exteriorization, one of the most important Hegelian concept, in its relation with kenosis, a religious concept. To do this, we will use Hegel's The Phenomenology of Spirit, The Science of Logic and Lessons on the Philosophy of Religion. Especially, The Phenomenology of Spirit and Lessons on the Philospohy of Religion will be our main sources in this research. But our primary goal will be to connect the concept of exteriorization to that of kenosis. In this way it will be possible to understand the relationship between exteriorization, that’s to say kenosis, and the Spirit. In general, the Kenosis has a lot of meanings; exteriorization, self-sacrifice and self-surrender... By keeping in our mind all this meanings cited, we will try to illimunate the place of kenosis in the constitution of Spirit. In fact, Hegelian Spirit must be understood in its process of becoming subject, through exteriorization. In this process we have also a self- sacrifice and self surrender. But before that, we are going to see the unhappy consciousness; a type of consciousness which is the last form of the first section of Self-Consciousness. With Unhappy Consciousness, we will be dealing with the consciousness that experiences the gap between itself and Divine truth. We will see that this consciousness turns away from the world by performing a false act of sacrifice in order to unify itself with Divine truth. On the contrary, the Spirit is itself an act of self sacrifice because it is a reciprocal self sacrifice and this reciprocal act performed by self consciousness and substance at the same time. The Spirit opens itself, exteriorizes itself to allow particulars self-consciousnesses to realise their goals, but it depends on recognition. It means that, a Hegelian metaphysics could be based on recognition, on a true self-emptying process.