through a deed, the casualness is broken through, notably because its legitimacy is
disputed
by other deeds.
Hegels Philosophy of the Historical Religions
ttlichen ist.
Der gott erscheint so im Stein, und das Sinnliche gilt noch als angemessen fu?
r den Ausdruck des gottes als gottes" (p.
124).
("As the god, although a spititual, general power, originates from naturalness, he must also have the natural as the element of its incarnation, and it has to appear that precisely the natural is the mode of the devine.
thus god appears in the stone and the sensual still appears as adequate for the expression of god as god").
7 in 1827 hegel combines polytheism with the immediacy of the ethical life in the polis. in its immediate form, "the ethical content fragments" and this fragmentation is repre- sented by a multitude of gods. By the way, in Vorlesungen u? ber die Philosophie der Religion ii, not the god of the polis, but Zeus is introduced as superior god: "Dagegen Zeus ist der
? 102 paul cobben
has been understood, it will also become clear why polytheism can have meaning in the single polis.
3. the internal Contradiction of the Polis
the democratic society, i. e. , the society of free citizens, has to solve, in one way or another, the conflict that can arise between individual and community. in principle, the free individual can determine the content of his action. therefore, it is not trivial that many free individuals can live together in one society. the free action of one does not need to be compatible with the free action of others. therefore, a free society is only possible if the free action of all can be brought to a harmonic unity. the polis succeeds in this by regulating the action of its citizens according to norms and values that are traditionally given. the citizens realize the morals of the state they are living in. this is exactly why the freedom of the polis has an immediate form. it is true that the actions of the citizens are free because the content of these actions is not imposed by nature; it is a traditional, human made content. But as traditionally determined, this freedom limits itself to the specific historic form in which human freedom can appear. therefore, the harmony of the polis is only possible as long as this restriction is respected. the pure free self, the self that has the ability to determine its action purely from out of itself, has to be distinguished from the real free self, the self that has given its action a specific historical content. the harmony of the polis can only exist if the pure self has been repressed in some way or, at least, gets no validity. the solution of the polis is the banishment of the pure self to the underworld. 8 As long as this banishment is effectuated, the harmony of the polis is not threatened. however, the pure self refuses its definitive confinement in the underworld. this is expressed in the development of the polis that can be characterized as the return of the repressed. the freedom of the pure self is the implicit presupposition of the polis. the pure self will invade the public domain of the polis step by step. Ultimately, the pure self can claim its place as the formal person. if this occurs, however, the polis is destroyed.
politische gott, der gott der Gesetze, der herrschaft, aber der bekannten gesetze, nicht der gesetze des gewissens" (p. 104). ("Zeus, however, is the political god, the god of the laws, the power, but of the known laws, not the laws of Conscience". )
8 The Lectures of 1827, p. 332/536: "the ethical is an objective content such that a sub- jectivity or this internal reflection is not yet present. "
? religion in the form of art 103
the development of the polis immediately reflects itself in the religion in the form of art, in which the self-consciousness of the polis is repre- sented. Without the threat of this decline the polis would be in perfect harmony and the motive to represent this harmony would be absent. this changes when the harmony is in danger. "Since the ethical nation lives in immediate unity with its substance and lacks the principle of the pure individuality of self-consciousness, the complete form of its religion first appears as divorced from its existential shape"9 (PhSp, 425).
Apparently, the religious representation has a double meaning. on the one hand, the representation already expresses the decline of the polis, for the religious consciousness is a manifestation of the principle of pure singularity. Without the emergence of self-consciousness, there would be no need for religion. on the other hand, the decline of the polis can be delayed when its absolute essence is represented by the religious con- sciousness. the religious representation contradicts the actual decline. for the religious consciousness, the polis still has an absolute essence, even though the facts show otherwise. here, religion functions as an ideo- logical consciousness, which is dedicated to the status quo.
in contrast with the development of natural religion, the development of religion in the form of art does not express itself in distinct religions and distinct forms of society. Rather, religion in the form of art concerns the internal development of one and the same religious form. At the same time, this development presents itself as an unavoidable destiny and does not have the self-conscious form characterizing revealed religion.
4. the Work of Art within the Practical framework of the Polis
Before going into the development of religion in the form of art, it is advisable first to dwell upon hegel's view of the work of art and its practical meaning in the polis. how can the work of art express the self- consciousness of the polis and why can this representation contribute to the delay of its fall?
9 "indem das sittliche Volk in der unmittelbaren einheit mit seiner Substanz lebt und das Prinzip der reinen einzelheit des Selbstbewusstseins nicht an ihm hat, so tritt seine Religion in ihrer Vollendung erst im Scheiden von seinem Bestehen auf " (Phdg, 490/1). the english translation is obviously wrong. the point is not that the religion is divorced from the ethical substance, but that the religion only gets existence when the polis threatens to become ruined.
? 104 paul cobben
first, we have to know how hegel understands the 'work of art'. of course, the work of art is a work, which means it is a remaining product of human labour. What specific conditions, however, make the work a work of art? the first condition to distinguish a work of art from other works has to do with the content of that work. the content of the work can refer to other entities. A house, for example, refers to an individual who wants protection against hostile forces of nature. or, a hammer is a labour product that itself refers to labour and the resulting product. But the content of the work of art only refers to itself. the work of art repre- sents the absolute being, or at least an absolute being. in this sense, the work of art has a religious meaning.
this determination of the content of the work of art, however, is still insufficient. old egyptian mummies or the paintings in the pyramids, which are images of the gods, are also labour products with an absolute content. But they are not works of art in the strict hegelian sense of the word. According to hegel, the real work of art only appears in the Ancient greek world because, in that world, for the first time, the riddle of the sphinx was solved. 10 in the greek world, man has manifested himself as the absolute essence. the absolute being has been identified as human freedom. only a work that represents human freedom can rightly be called a work of art.
this conclusion, however, leads to a problem. if the work of art has to express human freedom, then the polis itself must be considered as the work of art par excellence. in this case, it becomes problematic to under- stand the reason and meaning behind representing the polis in another work of art. Why can the duplication of the polis in another work of art accomplish what the polis itself cannot, namely, a delay of decline?
from a certain point of view, the polis is, indeed, the perfect work of art. it is not only a work that embodies human freedom, but it is also the only existence of this freedom. freedom has no other mode of being. to be free means to be a citizen of the polis. to be a citizen of the polis means to be free. there is no way to be free outside the polis. the citi- zen has no conscience or subjective identity to differentiate between his public and subjective role. in this sense, freedom only exists insofar as it is practically performed. Any reflection on this freedom, any subjective
10 PhSp, 423: "But the work still lacks the shape and outer reality in which the self exists as self; it still does not in its own self proclaim that it includes within it an inner meaning, it lacks speech, the element in which the meaning filling it is itself present. "
? religion in the form of art 105
notion of the citizen about the fact that he is free, would destroy the spe- cific sense of freedom that is meant here. the polis would no longer be substantial, for its substantiality would be denied by subjective thinking. this means, in other words, that the polis, as a work of art, is the exclusive medium for this type of freedom to appear in. the polis is, in this sense, the ultimate society of artists.
But, once again, if the polis is such a perfect work of art, why are other works of art needed to represent its absolute essence? to answer this question, we must consider the specific difference between the polis as a work of art and other works of art. the difference is obvious. the citizen is immersed in the polis. he is part of its substantial reality. As a conse- quence, he is not able to relate himself to the polis as such. this is not the case where other works of art are concerned. the citizen can relate himself to other works of art as defined objects, i. e. , as objects that can be distinguished from the objective totality, from the polis. therefore, other works of art more adequately express the absolute being when the polis is threatened to decline. the threat of decline originates in the moment that the concrete reality of the polis is disturbed and the citizen devel- ops a specific and external relationship to the polis. for the citizen, this externality means that the polis is no longer the absolute being. this loss of the polis' absolute status can be undone by a work of art, which is not only an alternative representation of the absolute being, but which also incorporates the specific relationship of the citizen to the polis. if this specific relationship is part of the representation of the absolute being, it can appear as an absolute relationship, which is no longer a menace or threat to the stability of the polis. in the next paragraph, i will clarify this with an example.
5. how is a Specific Work of Art Capable of Delaying the inevitable Destiny of the Polis?
A provisional answer to this question has already been given. in the specific work of art, the specific relationship of the citizen to the polis is represented as an absolute one. But how can a specific work represent an absolute being? is not the work of art a human-made product? more- over, the specificity of the work of art not only expresses its distinction from other specific works, but also obviously refers to the relationship of the citizen to the polis. is not this relationship better expressed in con- ceptual terms? is not the sublation of the work of art announced by the
106 paul cobben
observation that it expresses a specific relationship? And how can we understand that a specific work of art expresses a specific relationship?
hegel characterizes the work of art as the individualisation and rep- resentation of the general spirit (PhSp, 426), i. e. , of the ethical spirit of the polis. What exactly does this mean? if the general spirit can be rep- resented, its absolute content must in some way be open to duplication. the work of art is a representation because its own content refers to the absolute content of the polis. to indicate this duplication, hegel uses the term "pathos. " this term shows up for the first time at the level of the ethical world, when hegel discusses the objective reality of the polis. "the substance does appear, it is true, in the individuality as his 'pathos' . . . " (PhSp, 284). Apparently, pathos is the absolute ethical content insofar as it is experienced by the citizen. here, there still is no question of duplica- tion in the strict sense. the work of art still is the polis itself. it is only by means of the individuality that the polis is a living entity. therefore, a distinction has to be made between the absolute content as the content of the individuality and the absolute content itself. the two distinguished sides, however, do not have their own mode of being.
it is at the level of religion in the form of art that hegel uses the term 'pathos' for the second time. here, the term has a negative meaning. As the pure form of the self, the individuality has lost all content. this loss, however, is no emancipation, is not yet liberation from substantial ties. the loss of the absolute content is experienced as an absolute empti- ness. or, rather, the absolute being is experienced in the mode of its total absence. this time, the negative, formless, but absolute content is called pathos. it is the pathos of the pure self in which all form has been con- centrated. the pure self relates itself to the formless essence, as "the pure activity. " "this pure activity, conscious of its inalienable strength, wrestles with the shapeless essence. Becoming its master, it has made the 'pathos' into its material and given itself its content, and this unity emerges as a work, universal Spirit individualized and set before us" (PhSp, 427). this makes clear in what sense the work of art is an individualisation of the general spirit. individuality has been the pure form of the absolute sub- stance itself. individuality and substance, however, disintegrate and are transformed into the relationship between the pure self and its pathos. the specific form of this relationship is objectified in the specific form of a work of art. Since the work of art gives a renewed and positive reality to the absolute content as well, the work of art can be characterized, indeed, as the individualisation and representation of the general spirit.
religion in the form of art 107
We can now deduce the promised example from the most immediate relationship between the self and the substance. the primary condition for thinking a relationship between both these terms is their mutual dis- tinction. if the self experiences itself to be distinguished from the ethical substance, the substance loses its absolute status. the specific form of the relationship between self and substance is that they are purely distinct. therefore, the substance can regain its absolute status if this form can be objectified in a work of art. the work of art we are looking for is identified by hegel as the statue of the god and the temple, the house of the god. the statue of the god is an idealized human being and represents, in hegel's interpretation, the citizen. the ethical substance, from which the citizen has separated himself, is represented by the temple. 11 the temple is the world of the god, like the ethical substance is the world of the citizen. how- ever, it is essential that the god and the temple are two distinct works. the result is that the relationship between self and substance is represented as an absolute one. the harmony, which was broken by the separation of the self and the substance, has been retrieved because the self has its own sub- stance in the statue and the substance has its own form in the temple. the substantial unity of the polis has been broken into the moment of the self and the moment of the substance. But because both these moments are, each for themselves, represented in a work of art, the distinction between them is sublated in the representation. Both works represent the absolute substance. therefore, their distinction is actually no distinction at all. the works express a specific logical relationship, namely, the relationship of stoicism. for the stoic consciousness, there is only one form, one ? o? o? , which is both the law of nature and the law of the self. therefore, there is no real distinction between nature and self. Correspondingly, the statue and the temple are both forms of one and the same absolute substance. thus, there is also no actual distinction between them. they represent, to recall a quotation i mentioned before, "the movement of an insubstantial antithesis whose moments have no particular, distinctive content and no essentiality of their own" (PhSp, 281).
11 "the first mode in which the artistic spirit keeps its shape and its active consciousness farthest apart in the immediate mode, viz. the shape is there or is immediately present simply as a thing. in this mode, the shape is broken up into the distinction of individual- ity, which bears within it the shape of the self, and of universality, which represents the inorganic essence in reference to the shape, its environment and habitation" (PhSp, 427).
? 108 paul cobben
the statue and the temple, however, are not the only works that rep- resent the ethical substance. the ethical substance of the polis is a com- posed unity that is internally structured by a multitude of moments. it will turn out that all these moments will be represented in a work of art. the differentiation within the religion in the form of art, i. e. , its distinction between a multitude of works, can only be understood if the constituting moments of the polis are explicated. therefore, the harmonic unity of the polis has to be analysed. in the next paragraph, this analysis begins with the situation in which the decline of the polis seems to be totally absent: there is harmony that seems to need no religion to maintain itself.
6. the Starting Point: the harmony of the immediate ethical World
obviously, in the harmonic point of departure of the polis, the pure self fails to appear in the public domain. hegel expresses this with the curious sentence: "As yet, no deed has been committed" (PhSp, 279). of course, this does not mean that hegel accepts the possibility of a society in which all deeds fail. here, 'deed' has a specific meaning (that can be distinguished from action). Deed does not imply the casualness of traditional norms and values that are simply lived.
through a deed, the casualness is broken through, notably because its legitimacy is disputed by other deeds.
to gain insight into the greek world in which no deed in this pregnant sense has been fulfilled, we must look closer at the systematic place hegel attributes to the greek world within the development of the Phenomenol- ogy of Spirit. hegel designates the greek world as "the true Spirit," which is "self-supporting, absolute, real being" (PhSp, 264). hegel adds: "All pre- vious shapes of consciousness are abstract forms of it" (PhSp, 264). All forms of the appearing consciousness preceding hegel's discussion of the greek world are abstractions from the substantial reality of this world. therefore, the greek world has to be understood as the concrete totality of all forms of the appearing consciousness. this means that all moments developed by hegel in the first chapter of the Phenomenology (Conscious- ness) are part of the concrete reality of the polis. When the polis is con- sidered according to these moments of Consciousness, it appears as the society in which "no deed has been committed. " Consciousness relates to reality as one that is given sensorially. Consciousness tries to formulate general, theoretical knowledge about this reality and, ultimately, knowl- edge in accordance with laws. therefore, the reality of free action remains out of sight of Consciousness.
religion in the form of art 109
the first moment of Consciousness is the sense-Certainty. it tries to grasp reality as one that is immediately sensorially given. evidently, the greek world, as historical, is sensorially given too. But, in so far as the sense-Certainty cannot grasp its reality as a unity, forcing Consciousness to make the transition into Perception and Understanding, the unity of the polis escapes the multitude of ethical relations in which it appears so that, consequently, Perception and Understanding must be understood as moments of the polis. Perception's "[t]hing with many properties" can be found again twice: as the unity of the family appearing in the multitude of family members and as the unity of the state appearing in the multi- tude of citizens. Understanding appears in the laws underlying the unity of the family and that of the state: the law of the family (or the divine law) and the law of the state (or the human law). the distinction hegel makes at the level of Understanding between the first and the second law of Understanding (PhSp, 96) returns in the polis. from out of the objec- tifying perspective of Consciousness, the law of the state appears as the "eternal" law, remaining the same (the first law of Understanding). from out of this objectifying perspective, the law of the family (whose further development we will see later) appears as the second law of Understand- ing: "like becomes unlike and unlike becomes like" (PhSp, 96). As the sup- plier of citizens, the family is the presupposition of the law of the state. to fulfill this position, it must make the unlike (the natural individuals) like: it must educate the natural individuals to citizens. in this way, the like becomes unlike: the natural individual is split up into the natural indi- vidual and the citizen.
from the perspective of the Consciousness, there is no question of deed in pregnant sense, indeed. the content of the law of the state and the goal of education are fixed. this changes, however, if the polis is consid- ered from the perspective of Self-consciousness. from this perspective, the law is not something given in reality, but is grounded in a pure self. in the second chapter of the Phenomenology, hegel develops the conditions under which the pure self can really exist. it exists not in relation to the natural reality that is immediately given (s. Desire), but only within the framework of society. he expresses this societal order in the metaphor of the master/servant relation. 12 the pure self can only be real as servant, i. e. , as the servant of the societal order, which is the master.
12 translated as: "lordship and Bondage. "
? 110 paul cobben
in this context, it is not necessary to develop elaborately the transition from the pure self into the master/servant relation (lordship and Bond- age). We need only to understand that the basic thought underlying the master/slave relation is an Aristotelian one. man is a free being because he is able to produce a second nature. the state is the reality in which not the laws of nature are valid but the laws posed by the people themselves. therefore, the submission to the state (the serving of the master) is not a submission to a foreign power, but an act of freedom: it is self-submission to free human essence.
it is important not to understand the master/servant relation as a his- torical relation, as an act of recognition that leads to the constitution of a societal order. Rather, the relation is an explicitation of the being of the pure self. the reality of the pure self can only be understood in relation to an objective reality that can be considered as self-expression of the pure self: it is a state order recognized by the self as the expression of the self's pure essence. moreover, it is of importance that hegel shows that this recognition presupposes that the servant has experienced the fear of death. this experience must also not be understood as factual in time (i. e. , as if there is first the experience of the fear of death and, con- sequently, the decision to submit as servant). here, again, the experience is an explicitation of logical presuppositions. Without body the pure self cannot be real. this, however, does not imply that the self is determined by its body--this would destroy its purity. therefore, the pure self must not only experience that it is explicitly distinguished from its body, but also that it can express itself in its body. hegel combines the experience of the distinction between the pure self and the body with the fear of death. in the fear of death, the self experiences its body in the power of an abso- lute master (death), so that it is no longer in the power of the pure self. Precisely because the body is caught in a foreign power, the pure self can experience it as distinguished from itself. therefore, the fear of death is not an experience that shows what it means to die. Rather, it is a kind of victory over death. in the fear of death, the pure self experiences itself to be with itself because it distinguishes itself from its body as such. the pure self learns to understand itself as the body that is brought into the unity of the concept. As this pure concept, the pure self is not mortal itself.
At the moment the body dies, it seems to be disproved that the pure self is the essence of its body (and other nature). the certainty that the pure self was thought to have was only a subjective, internal certainty that, in the end, is refuted by the facts when it comes to the point where the pure self is not able to express itself as the essence of its body. this changes,
religion in the form of art 111
however, when the pure self knows its essence to be represented by the master. in the master, the pure self is recognized as the absolute ground of society. this recognition is practically expressed if all serve the master as servant, i. e. , if all express the law of society in their actions. then, the pure self gets an institutional, immortal body in the organism of society.
the master/slave relation is transformed in the relationship of stoicism when the servant can identify himself with the master. the cultivation the servant has undergone in his serving has resulted in a reality that no lon- ger seems to have secrets for the servant. the distinctions in the servant's thinking seem to coincide immediately with the distinctions of reality. in his thoughts, the servant supposes to have become immediately the master of reality. it is exactly this form of stoicism that characterizes the consciousness of the citizens in the polis, as long as "no deed has been committed. " At this stage, actions have not been developed into deeds in the pregnant sense: "the action is the transition from thought to actuality merely as the movement of an insubstantial antithesis whose moments have no particular, distinctive content and no essentiality of their own" (PhSp, 281). in this acting, the pure self disappears behind its historical expression in the specific historic law of the polis.
7. Return of the Suppressed: the Divine law as expression of the Pure Self
Although the actions of the citizens according the human law of the polis are free (the law is a product of human freedom), this freedom is not yet expressed as such in human law. the purity of the free self, the free- dom that makes it possible to realize oneself in many ways, remains hid- den behind the factual realization in the ruling human law. this means that the citizen only appears as an instrument of the state. Ultimately, the state can ask the citizen to sacrifice his life for the salvation of the state. this does not do justice to the inward freedom of the citizen, to his pure self that makes him a member of an absolute, supra-temporal order, which is distinct from the worldly order of the state. this is a blessing for the state because it does not need to fear the subversion of its authority by the pure self.
if the pure self is not expressed at all in the polis, the pure self would be no more than a void illusion. maintaining that the human law is an expression of human freedom would cease to have any meaning. As a result, the law would only exist and could have a natural as well as a
112 paul cobben
divine origin. the human origin of the human law can only be under- stood if this freedom belongs to the reality of the polis. According to hegel, in the greek world, it is not the state but the family that does jus- tice to the pure self.
the family is not dealing with citizens but with real individuals, which it keeps alive and educates to become citizens. Also, these activities seem to have nothing to do with the individual's participation in the pure self. this changes, however, with the death of the individual. for the state, the death of the individual is a relative loss, the loss of one of its many citi- zens. Conversely, for the family, the death of the individual is an absolute loss. Because the family has to educate its members to their ethical role, it principally does justice to them as free individuals, i. e. , as individuals who participate in the pure self. the submission to the ethical role is essen- tially self-submission.
the absolute loss of the family leads to a process of experience, which is structured like the Unhappy Consciousness. the absolute essence of the deceased individual can only be held in the memory of the family and is thus separated from the objective world. this separation denies the abso- luteness of its essence. therefore, the family searches for the dead one in the real world. however, it can only find the body of the lost individual. in its "work," i. e. , in the burying of the body, the family tries to reunite the dead body, by sacrificing its corporeality (the body is given back to "the bosom of the earth" (PhSp, 271)), with its absolute essence. this re-union, however, is the result of the family's actions. in its entombing of the dead family member, the family does justice to the pure self of the deceased. this justice, however, gets no place in the real world. the deceased, who is honored by the family, has taken a place in the underworld. individual and community, the right of the pure self and the right of the citizens of the state, do not need to be opposed. hegel formulates the deceased's right of entombing as the family's duty, i. e. , as the Divine law that is valid alongside the human law.
8. the Abstract Work of Art: the Representation of the Pure Self in the Public Domain
the definite banishment of the pure self to the underworld will fail. the pure and real self are internally united. this internal bond will inevi- tably lead to the penetration by the pure self of the public conscious- ness and, consequently, to the undermining of the state's stability. the moments of the pure self, the coming to self-consciousness at the level
religion in the form of art 113
of family in a process of experience that was structured in the form of Unhappy Consciousness, cannot remain hidden from the public con- sciousness. the decline of the polis, however, can, for the time being, be postponed because these moments are not expressed in the form of self- consciousness but in the form of representation, i. e. , as the works of the abstract art. the moments are represented as absolute works of art that have their own existence beside the statue and the temple that originally represent the harmonic unity of the polis. the pure self that exists for the family beside the objective world (as the subjective memory of the deceased) returns in the public consciousness in the form of the abstract works of art.
the penetration by the pure self of the public consciousness is done justice by hegel when he says that the sculptor does not recognize the activity of his actions in the statue. 13 the sculptor objectifies his pathos in the statue, like the citizen objectifies his pathos in the human law. the pathos of the artist, however, is not identical with its expression in the work of art but also encompasses the moment of freedom. the self of the artist has dissociated itself from its being immediately determined by the substance. the work of art is, as we have seen earlier, the result of the struggle between the pure activity of the artist and his pathos. insofar as the sculptor does not recognize his activity in the work, the work as well as the polis it represents loses its absolute status.
the substance of the polis can regain an absolute representation if the activity of the artist is also represented in the work. According to hegel, this happens in the hymn, the second form of the abstract work of art he discusses. At this level, the god is represented in the medium of the expressed language. in this medium, the work of art remains, in its objectivation, bound to the self. therefore, the separation between the self and the substance has been avoided. the hymn is not a thing like a statue or a temple which, once produced, keeps the activity of the self out- side itself. the hymn only exists in and by the performance of the people. here, the religious self-consciousness is "pure thought, or the devotion whose inwardness in the hymn has at the same time an outer existence" (PhSp, 430).
the reverse side of this alliance between the existence of the work of art and the activity of the self is that the existence of the work of art
13 "Since his work comes back to him simply as joyfulness, he does not find therein the painful labour of making himself into an artist, and of creation, nor the strain and effort of his work" (PhSp, 429).
? 114 paul cobben
is fleeting. the hymn is, in hegel's terminology "a vanishing existence" (PhSp, 432). the work's objectivity is too much confined in the self and, therefore, "falls short of attaining a lasting shape and is, like time, no longer immediately present in the very moment of its being present" (PhSp, 432).
now it becomes clear what hegel implicitly already indicated by using the term "Devotion. " in the hymn, the theoretical moment of the Unhappy Consciousness is objectified. in the hymn, the god is represented as an unchanging but impalpable being. the unhappiness of the Unhappy Con- sciousness is due to the contradiction in which it is involved. Because its 'god' remains impalpable, i. e. , it does not appear in the real world, this 'god' is (negatively) determined by the real world and, therefore, is not absolute. to rescue the absoluteness of this 'god', the Unhappy Conscious- ness looks for its reality. hegel illustrates this search with the example of the medieval crusades that tried to find the reality of god in the holy land. the crusaders, however, only found a grave (no real self has an eternal life). Consequently, the Unhappy Consciousness makes a second attempt to reconcile the absolute self with the real world. By sacrificing its real self, it tries to become unified with the pure self. if, however, the Unhappy Consciousness succeeds in overcoming its real self, the Consciousness itself appears to be the absolute essence of the real self.
the development of the abstract work is structured in accordance with the Unhappy Consciousness: the pure self that is represented in the hymn must be reconciled with the real world. in the abstract Cult, the third form of the abstract work, the real self is raised "into being the pure divine element" (PhSp, 433) by ritual actions: "a soul that cleanses its exterior by washing it, and puts on white robes, while its inward being traverses the imaginatively conceived path of works, punishments, and rewards, the path of spiritual training in general, i. e. of ridding itself of its particularity, as a result of which it reaches the dwellings and the community of the blest" (PhSp, 433).
like the search for the real self that is divine, the attempts of the abstract Cult will fail. the ritual actions cannot really change the real self into a divine self. therefore, a second attempt has to be made in the actual Cult, the fourth form of the abstract work. the actual Cult is the action that can be understood as a spiritual movement, "because it is this twofold process, on the one hand, of superseding the abstraction of the divine Being (which is how devotion determines its object) and making it actual, and, on the other hand, of superseding the actual (which is how the doer determines the object and himself) and raising it into universality" (PhSp, 433/4). the
religion in the form of art 115
central action of the actual Cult is an act of sacrifice. on the one hand, the divine Being is sacrificed: "the animal sacrificed is the symbol of a god; the fruits consumed are the living Ceres and Bacchus themselves" (PhSp, 434). on the other hand, the actual is sacrificed to divine Being: "with the pure surrender of a possession which the owner, apparently without any profit whatever to himself, pours away or lets rise up in smoke" (PhSp, 434). the result of these sacrifices is the transformation of the divine Being "into self-conscious existence, and the self has conscious- ness of its unity with the divine Being" (PhSp, 435).
in the unity of self and divine Being, the devotion is "robbed of its outer existence. " the Cult replaces this defect and "produces a dwelling and adornments for the glory of god" (PhSp, 435). once again, it appears that the labour in which the self sacrifices itself for the god ultimately shows that the real self is the essence of god: "the dwellings and halls of the god are for the use of man, the treasures preserved therein are his own in case of need; the honour and glory enjoyed by the god in his adornment are the honour and the glory of the nation, great in soul and in artistic achievement" (PhSp, 435).
9. the Polis as a harmonic Unity
in the previous paragraph, we saw that the loss of family members resulted in a dialectic movement structured according the Unhappy Conscious- ness. As a result of this movement, the family appeared as the essence of the pure self. the pathos of the family is expressed in the Divine law. the duty of the Divine law guarantees that the pure self of the deceased member remains preserved in the memory of the family. in this sense, the Divine law is, so to say, the institutional house of the pure self that is distinguished from the domain of the state.
the separation between human and Divine law seemed to protect the state from the undermining force of the pure self. the pure self, how- ever, is the presupposition of the freedom of the state's citizen. therefore, the penetration by the pure self of the public consciousness cannot be prevented; this penetration can only be postponed by representing the relation between citizen and polis in works of art, i. e. , as the fixed rela- tion between statue and temple. As a product of the artist, however, the work of art also presupposes the pure self and is, itself, undermined in its absoluteness. to repair the absoluteness of the work, the pure self is represented in its turn as an abstract work of art, structured according the
116 paul cobben
moments of the Unhappy Consciousness. this time, the result of the dia- lectic movement shows the state as the appearance of the pure self. the pathos of the state (expressed in the human law) is no longer separated from the pathos of the family, but is explicitly understood as the realiza- tion of the pure self.
now the polis can be conceptualized as a harmonic unity in which all the moments of Reason are objectified. the pure self that is institutional- ized in the family relates to the objective world of the state in which it can recognize its own essence. if the relation is theoretically considered, it appears as the reality of the observing reason: "What observation knew as a given object in which the self had no part, is here a given custom, but a reality which is at the same time the deed and the work of the subject finding it. " (PhSp, 276) from a practical perspective, it is the reality of the practical reason:
the individual who seeks the pleasure of enjoying his individuality, finds it in the family, and the necessity in which that pleasure passes away is his own self-consciousness as a citizen of his nation. or, again, it is in know- ing that the law of his own heart is the law of all hearts, in knowing the consciousness of the self as the acknowledged universal order; it is virtue, which enjoys the fruits of sacrifice, what brings about what it sets out to do, viz. to bring forth the essence into the light of day, and its enjoyment is this universal life. (PhSp, 276/7)
from a totalizing perspective, it is the reality of the matter in hand:
finally, consciousness of the 'matter in hand' itself finds satisfaction in the real substance which contains and preserves in a positive manner the abstract moments of that empty category. that substance has in the ethical powers, a genuine content that takes the place of the insubstantial com- mandments which sound Reason wanted to give and to know; and thus it gets an intrinsically determinate standard for testing, not the laws, but what is done. (PhSp, 277)
10. Repression of the Deed: the living Work of Art
the harmonic unity of the polis is only guaranteed when the citizens com- mit no deeds in the pregnant sense: their actions have to be in accor- dance with the prevailing human law. this guarantee fails, however, at the moment that the human law is understood as an expression of the pure self. the pure self is basically a free self that is able to commit any action or, at least, actions that are not in accordance with the prevailing human law. therefore, the harmony of the polis is dependent on restric-
religion in the form of art 117
tive conditions that must be imposed on possible actions. these condi- tions can be specified for the different relations that the free individual can take upon himself towards the polis, i. e. , they can be specified for the different moments of the objectified Reason that compose the polis. We will see that these conditions are represented in the living and the spiritual works of art.
7 in 1827 hegel combines polytheism with the immediacy of the ethical life in the polis. in its immediate form, "the ethical content fragments" and this fragmentation is repre- sented by a multitude of gods. By the way, in Vorlesungen u? ber die Philosophie der Religion ii, not the god of the polis, but Zeus is introduced as superior god: "Dagegen Zeus ist der
? 102 paul cobben
has been understood, it will also become clear why polytheism can have meaning in the single polis.
3. the internal Contradiction of the Polis
the democratic society, i. e. , the society of free citizens, has to solve, in one way or another, the conflict that can arise between individual and community. in principle, the free individual can determine the content of his action. therefore, it is not trivial that many free individuals can live together in one society. the free action of one does not need to be compatible with the free action of others. therefore, a free society is only possible if the free action of all can be brought to a harmonic unity. the polis succeeds in this by regulating the action of its citizens according to norms and values that are traditionally given. the citizens realize the morals of the state they are living in. this is exactly why the freedom of the polis has an immediate form. it is true that the actions of the citizens are free because the content of these actions is not imposed by nature; it is a traditional, human made content. But as traditionally determined, this freedom limits itself to the specific historic form in which human freedom can appear. therefore, the harmony of the polis is only possible as long as this restriction is respected. the pure free self, the self that has the ability to determine its action purely from out of itself, has to be distinguished from the real free self, the self that has given its action a specific historical content. the harmony of the polis can only exist if the pure self has been repressed in some way or, at least, gets no validity. the solution of the polis is the banishment of the pure self to the underworld. 8 As long as this banishment is effectuated, the harmony of the polis is not threatened. however, the pure self refuses its definitive confinement in the underworld. this is expressed in the development of the polis that can be characterized as the return of the repressed. the freedom of the pure self is the implicit presupposition of the polis. the pure self will invade the public domain of the polis step by step. Ultimately, the pure self can claim its place as the formal person. if this occurs, however, the polis is destroyed.
politische gott, der gott der Gesetze, der herrschaft, aber der bekannten gesetze, nicht der gesetze des gewissens" (p. 104). ("Zeus, however, is the political god, the god of the laws, the power, but of the known laws, not the laws of Conscience". )
8 The Lectures of 1827, p. 332/536: "the ethical is an objective content such that a sub- jectivity or this internal reflection is not yet present. "
? religion in the form of art 103
the development of the polis immediately reflects itself in the religion in the form of art, in which the self-consciousness of the polis is repre- sented. Without the threat of this decline the polis would be in perfect harmony and the motive to represent this harmony would be absent. this changes when the harmony is in danger. "Since the ethical nation lives in immediate unity with its substance and lacks the principle of the pure individuality of self-consciousness, the complete form of its religion first appears as divorced from its existential shape"9 (PhSp, 425).
Apparently, the religious representation has a double meaning. on the one hand, the representation already expresses the decline of the polis, for the religious consciousness is a manifestation of the principle of pure singularity. Without the emergence of self-consciousness, there would be no need for religion. on the other hand, the decline of the polis can be delayed when its absolute essence is represented by the religious con- sciousness. the religious representation contradicts the actual decline. for the religious consciousness, the polis still has an absolute essence, even though the facts show otherwise. here, religion functions as an ideo- logical consciousness, which is dedicated to the status quo.
in contrast with the development of natural religion, the development of religion in the form of art does not express itself in distinct religions and distinct forms of society. Rather, religion in the form of art concerns the internal development of one and the same religious form. At the same time, this development presents itself as an unavoidable destiny and does not have the self-conscious form characterizing revealed religion.
4. the Work of Art within the Practical framework of the Polis
Before going into the development of religion in the form of art, it is advisable first to dwell upon hegel's view of the work of art and its practical meaning in the polis. how can the work of art express the self- consciousness of the polis and why can this representation contribute to the delay of its fall?
9 "indem das sittliche Volk in der unmittelbaren einheit mit seiner Substanz lebt und das Prinzip der reinen einzelheit des Selbstbewusstseins nicht an ihm hat, so tritt seine Religion in ihrer Vollendung erst im Scheiden von seinem Bestehen auf " (Phdg, 490/1). the english translation is obviously wrong. the point is not that the religion is divorced from the ethical substance, but that the religion only gets existence when the polis threatens to become ruined.
? 104 paul cobben
first, we have to know how hegel understands the 'work of art'. of course, the work of art is a work, which means it is a remaining product of human labour. What specific conditions, however, make the work a work of art? the first condition to distinguish a work of art from other works has to do with the content of that work. the content of the work can refer to other entities. A house, for example, refers to an individual who wants protection against hostile forces of nature. or, a hammer is a labour product that itself refers to labour and the resulting product. But the content of the work of art only refers to itself. the work of art repre- sents the absolute being, or at least an absolute being. in this sense, the work of art has a religious meaning.
this determination of the content of the work of art, however, is still insufficient. old egyptian mummies or the paintings in the pyramids, which are images of the gods, are also labour products with an absolute content. But they are not works of art in the strict hegelian sense of the word. According to hegel, the real work of art only appears in the Ancient greek world because, in that world, for the first time, the riddle of the sphinx was solved. 10 in the greek world, man has manifested himself as the absolute essence. the absolute being has been identified as human freedom. only a work that represents human freedom can rightly be called a work of art.
this conclusion, however, leads to a problem. if the work of art has to express human freedom, then the polis itself must be considered as the work of art par excellence. in this case, it becomes problematic to under- stand the reason and meaning behind representing the polis in another work of art. Why can the duplication of the polis in another work of art accomplish what the polis itself cannot, namely, a delay of decline?
from a certain point of view, the polis is, indeed, the perfect work of art. it is not only a work that embodies human freedom, but it is also the only existence of this freedom. freedom has no other mode of being. to be free means to be a citizen of the polis. to be a citizen of the polis means to be free. there is no way to be free outside the polis. the citi- zen has no conscience or subjective identity to differentiate between his public and subjective role. in this sense, freedom only exists insofar as it is practically performed. Any reflection on this freedom, any subjective
10 PhSp, 423: "But the work still lacks the shape and outer reality in which the self exists as self; it still does not in its own self proclaim that it includes within it an inner meaning, it lacks speech, the element in which the meaning filling it is itself present. "
? religion in the form of art 105
notion of the citizen about the fact that he is free, would destroy the spe- cific sense of freedom that is meant here. the polis would no longer be substantial, for its substantiality would be denied by subjective thinking. this means, in other words, that the polis, as a work of art, is the exclusive medium for this type of freedom to appear in. the polis is, in this sense, the ultimate society of artists.
But, once again, if the polis is such a perfect work of art, why are other works of art needed to represent its absolute essence? to answer this question, we must consider the specific difference between the polis as a work of art and other works of art. the difference is obvious. the citizen is immersed in the polis. he is part of its substantial reality. As a conse- quence, he is not able to relate himself to the polis as such. this is not the case where other works of art are concerned. the citizen can relate himself to other works of art as defined objects, i. e. , as objects that can be distinguished from the objective totality, from the polis. therefore, other works of art more adequately express the absolute being when the polis is threatened to decline. the threat of decline originates in the moment that the concrete reality of the polis is disturbed and the citizen devel- ops a specific and external relationship to the polis. for the citizen, this externality means that the polis is no longer the absolute being. this loss of the polis' absolute status can be undone by a work of art, which is not only an alternative representation of the absolute being, but which also incorporates the specific relationship of the citizen to the polis. if this specific relationship is part of the representation of the absolute being, it can appear as an absolute relationship, which is no longer a menace or threat to the stability of the polis. in the next paragraph, i will clarify this with an example.
5. how is a Specific Work of Art Capable of Delaying the inevitable Destiny of the Polis?
A provisional answer to this question has already been given. in the specific work of art, the specific relationship of the citizen to the polis is represented as an absolute one. But how can a specific work represent an absolute being? is not the work of art a human-made product? more- over, the specificity of the work of art not only expresses its distinction from other specific works, but also obviously refers to the relationship of the citizen to the polis. is not this relationship better expressed in con- ceptual terms? is not the sublation of the work of art announced by the
106 paul cobben
observation that it expresses a specific relationship? And how can we understand that a specific work of art expresses a specific relationship?
hegel characterizes the work of art as the individualisation and rep- resentation of the general spirit (PhSp, 426), i. e. , of the ethical spirit of the polis. What exactly does this mean? if the general spirit can be rep- resented, its absolute content must in some way be open to duplication. the work of art is a representation because its own content refers to the absolute content of the polis. to indicate this duplication, hegel uses the term "pathos. " this term shows up for the first time at the level of the ethical world, when hegel discusses the objective reality of the polis. "the substance does appear, it is true, in the individuality as his 'pathos' . . . " (PhSp, 284). Apparently, pathos is the absolute ethical content insofar as it is experienced by the citizen. here, there still is no question of duplica- tion in the strict sense. the work of art still is the polis itself. it is only by means of the individuality that the polis is a living entity. therefore, a distinction has to be made between the absolute content as the content of the individuality and the absolute content itself. the two distinguished sides, however, do not have their own mode of being.
it is at the level of religion in the form of art that hegel uses the term 'pathos' for the second time. here, the term has a negative meaning. As the pure form of the self, the individuality has lost all content. this loss, however, is no emancipation, is not yet liberation from substantial ties. the loss of the absolute content is experienced as an absolute empti- ness. or, rather, the absolute being is experienced in the mode of its total absence. this time, the negative, formless, but absolute content is called pathos. it is the pathos of the pure self in which all form has been con- centrated. the pure self relates itself to the formless essence, as "the pure activity. " "this pure activity, conscious of its inalienable strength, wrestles with the shapeless essence. Becoming its master, it has made the 'pathos' into its material and given itself its content, and this unity emerges as a work, universal Spirit individualized and set before us" (PhSp, 427). this makes clear in what sense the work of art is an individualisation of the general spirit. individuality has been the pure form of the absolute sub- stance itself. individuality and substance, however, disintegrate and are transformed into the relationship between the pure self and its pathos. the specific form of this relationship is objectified in the specific form of a work of art. Since the work of art gives a renewed and positive reality to the absolute content as well, the work of art can be characterized, indeed, as the individualisation and representation of the general spirit.
religion in the form of art 107
We can now deduce the promised example from the most immediate relationship between the self and the substance. the primary condition for thinking a relationship between both these terms is their mutual dis- tinction. if the self experiences itself to be distinguished from the ethical substance, the substance loses its absolute status. the specific form of the relationship between self and substance is that they are purely distinct. therefore, the substance can regain its absolute status if this form can be objectified in a work of art. the work of art we are looking for is identified by hegel as the statue of the god and the temple, the house of the god. the statue of the god is an idealized human being and represents, in hegel's interpretation, the citizen. the ethical substance, from which the citizen has separated himself, is represented by the temple. 11 the temple is the world of the god, like the ethical substance is the world of the citizen. how- ever, it is essential that the god and the temple are two distinct works. the result is that the relationship between self and substance is represented as an absolute one. the harmony, which was broken by the separation of the self and the substance, has been retrieved because the self has its own sub- stance in the statue and the substance has its own form in the temple. the substantial unity of the polis has been broken into the moment of the self and the moment of the substance. But because both these moments are, each for themselves, represented in a work of art, the distinction between them is sublated in the representation. Both works represent the absolute substance. therefore, their distinction is actually no distinction at all. the works express a specific logical relationship, namely, the relationship of stoicism. for the stoic consciousness, there is only one form, one ? o? o? , which is both the law of nature and the law of the self. therefore, there is no real distinction between nature and self. Correspondingly, the statue and the temple are both forms of one and the same absolute substance. thus, there is also no actual distinction between them. they represent, to recall a quotation i mentioned before, "the movement of an insubstantial antithesis whose moments have no particular, distinctive content and no essentiality of their own" (PhSp, 281).
11 "the first mode in which the artistic spirit keeps its shape and its active consciousness farthest apart in the immediate mode, viz. the shape is there or is immediately present simply as a thing. in this mode, the shape is broken up into the distinction of individual- ity, which bears within it the shape of the self, and of universality, which represents the inorganic essence in reference to the shape, its environment and habitation" (PhSp, 427).
? 108 paul cobben
the statue and the temple, however, are not the only works that rep- resent the ethical substance. the ethical substance of the polis is a com- posed unity that is internally structured by a multitude of moments. it will turn out that all these moments will be represented in a work of art. the differentiation within the religion in the form of art, i. e. , its distinction between a multitude of works, can only be understood if the constituting moments of the polis are explicated. therefore, the harmonic unity of the polis has to be analysed. in the next paragraph, this analysis begins with the situation in which the decline of the polis seems to be totally absent: there is harmony that seems to need no religion to maintain itself.
6. the Starting Point: the harmony of the immediate ethical World
obviously, in the harmonic point of departure of the polis, the pure self fails to appear in the public domain. hegel expresses this with the curious sentence: "As yet, no deed has been committed" (PhSp, 279). of course, this does not mean that hegel accepts the possibility of a society in which all deeds fail. here, 'deed' has a specific meaning (that can be distinguished from action). Deed does not imply the casualness of traditional norms and values that are simply lived.
through a deed, the casualness is broken through, notably because its legitimacy is disputed by other deeds.
to gain insight into the greek world in which no deed in this pregnant sense has been fulfilled, we must look closer at the systematic place hegel attributes to the greek world within the development of the Phenomenol- ogy of Spirit. hegel designates the greek world as "the true Spirit," which is "self-supporting, absolute, real being" (PhSp, 264). hegel adds: "All pre- vious shapes of consciousness are abstract forms of it" (PhSp, 264). All forms of the appearing consciousness preceding hegel's discussion of the greek world are abstractions from the substantial reality of this world. therefore, the greek world has to be understood as the concrete totality of all forms of the appearing consciousness. this means that all moments developed by hegel in the first chapter of the Phenomenology (Conscious- ness) are part of the concrete reality of the polis. When the polis is con- sidered according to these moments of Consciousness, it appears as the society in which "no deed has been committed. " Consciousness relates to reality as one that is given sensorially. Consciousness tries to formulate general, theoretical knowledge about this reality and, ultimately, knowl- edge in accordance with laws. therefore, the reality of free action remains out of sight of Consciousness.
religion in the form of art 109
the first moment of Consciousness is the sense-Certainty. it tries to grasp reality as one that is immediately sensorially given. evidently, the greek world, as historical, is sensorially given too. But, in so far as the sense-Certainty cannot grasp its reality as a unity, forcing Consciousness to make the transition into Perception and Understanding, the unity of the polis escapes the multitude of ethical relations in which it appears so that, consequently, Perception and Understanding must be understood as moments of the polis. Perception's "[t]hing with many properties" can be found again twice: as the unity of the family appearing in the multitude of family members and as the unity of the state appearing in the multi- tude of citizens. Understanding appears in the laws underlying the unity of the family and that of the state: the law of the family (or the divine law) and the law of the state (or the human law). the distinction hegel makes at the level of Understanding between the first and the second law of Understanding (PhSp, 96) returns in the polis. from out of the objec- tifying perspective of Consciousness, the law of the state appears as the "eternal" law, remaining the same (the first law of Understanding). from out of this objectifying perspective, the law of the family (whose further development we will see later) appears as the second law of Understand- ing: "like becomes unlike and unlike becomes like" (PhSp, 96). As the sup- plier of citizens, the family is the presupposition of the law of the state. to fulfill this position, it must make the unlike (the natural individuals) like: it must educate the natural individuals to citizens. in this way, the like becomes unlike: the natural individual is split up into the natural indi- vidual and the citizen.
from the perspective of the Consciousness, there is no question of deed in pregnant sense, indeed. the content of the law of the state and the goal of education are fixed. this changes, however, if the polis is consid- ered from the perspective of Self-consciousness. from this perspective, the law is not something given in reality, but is grounded in a pure self. in the second chapter of the Phenomenology, hegel develops the conditions under which the pure self can really exist. it exists not in relation to the natural reality that is immediately given (s. Desire), but only within the framework of society. he expresses this societal order in the metaphor of the master/servant relation. 12 the pure self can only be real as servant, i. e. , as the servant of the societal order, which is the master.
12 translated as: "lordship and Bondage. "
? 110 paul cobben
in this context, it is not necessary to develop elaborately the transition from the pure self into the master/servant relation (lordship and Bond- age). We need only to understand that the basic thought underlying the master/slave relation is an Aristotelian one. man is a free being because he is able to produce a second nature. the state is the reality in which not the laws of nature are valid but the laws posed by the people themselves. therefore, the submission to the state (the serving of the master) is not a submission to a foreign power, but an act of freedom: it is self-submission to free human essence.
it is important not to understand the master/servant relation as a his- torical relation, as an act of recognition that leads to the constitution of a societal order. Rather, the relation is an explicitation of the being of the pure self. the reality of the pure self can only be understood in relation to an objective reality that can be considered as self-expression of the pure self: it is a state order recognized by the self as the expression of the self's pure essence. moreover, it is of importance that hegel shows that this recognition presupposes that the servant has experienced the fear of death. this experience must also not be understood as factual in time (i. e. , as if there is first the experience of the fear of death and, con- sequently, the decision to submit as servant). here, again, the experience is an explicitation of logical presuppositions. Without body the pure self cannot be real. this, however, does not imply that the self is determined by its body--this would destroy its purity. therefore, the pure self must not only experience that it is explicitly distinguished from its body, but also that it can express itself in its body. hegel combines the experience of the distinction between the pure self and the body with the fear of death. in the fear of death, the self experiences its body in the power of an abso- lute master (death), so that it is no longer in the power of the pure self. Precisely because the body is caught in a foreign power, the pure self can experience it as distinguished from itself. therefore, the fear of death is not an experience that shows what it means to die. Rather, it is a kind of victory over death. in the fear of death, the pure self experiences itself to be with itself because it distinguishes itself from its body as such. the pure self learns to understand itself as the body that is brought into the unity of the concept. As this pure concept, the pure self is not mortal itself.
At the moment the body dies, it seems to be disproved that the pure self is the essence of its body (and other nature). the certainty that the pure self was thought to have was only a subjective, internal certainty that, in the end, is refuted by the facts when it comes to the point where the pure self is not able to express itself as the essence of its body. this changes,
religion in the form of art 111
however, when the pure self knows its essence to be represented by the master. in the master, the pure self is recognized as the absolute ground of society. this recognition is practically expressed if all serve the master as servant, i. e. , if all express the law of society in their actions. then, the pure self gets an institutional, immortal body in the organism of society.
the master/slave relation is transformed in the relationship of stoicism when the servant can identify himself with the master. the cultivation the servant has undergone in his serving has resulted in a reality that no lon- ger seems to have secrets for the servant. the distinctions in the servant's thinking seem to coincide immediately with the distinctions of reality. in his thoughts, the servant supposes to have become immediately the master of reality. it is exactly this form of stoicism that characterizes the consciousness of the citizens in the polis, as long as "no deed has been committed. " At this stage, actions have not been developed into deeds in the pregnant sense: "the action is the transition from thought to actuality merely as the movement of an insubstantial antithesis whose moments have no particular, distinctive content and no essentiality of their own" (PhSp, 281). in this acting, the pure self disappears behind its historical expression in the specific historic law of the polis.
7. Return of the Suppressed: the Divine law as expression of the Pure Self
Although the actions of the citizens according the human law of the polis are free (the law is a product of human freedom), this freedom is not yet expressed as such in human law. the purity of the free self, the free- dom that makes it possible to realize oneself in many ways, remains hid- den behind the factual realization in the ruling human law. this means that the citizen only appears as an instrument of the state. Ultimately, the state can ask the citizen to sacrifice his life for the salvation of the state. this does not do justice to the inward freedom of the citizen, to his pure self that makes him a member of an absolute, supra-temporal order, which is distinct from the worldly order of the state. this is a blessing for the state because it does not need to fear the subversion of its authority by the pure self.
if the pure self is not expressed at all in the polis, the pure self would be no more than a void illusion. maintaining that the human law is an expression of human freedom would cease to have any meaning. As a result, the law would only exist and could have a natural as well as a
112 paul cobben
divine origin. the human origin of the human law can only be under- stood if this freedom belongs to the reality of the polis. According to hegel, in the greek world, it is not the state but the family that does jus- tice to the pure self.
the family is not dealing with citizens but with real individuals, which it keeps alive and educates to become citizens. Also, these activities seem to have nothing to do with the individual's participation in the pure self. this changes, however, with the death of the individual. for the state, the death of the individual is a relative loss, the loss of one of its many citi- zens. Conversely, for the family, the death of the individual is an absolute loss. Because the family has to educate its members to their ethical role, it principally does justice to them as free individuals, i. e. , as individuals who participate in the pure self. the submission to the ethical role is essen- tially self-submission.
the absolute loss of the family leads to a process of experience, which is structured like the Unhappy Consciousness. the absolute essence of the deceased individual can only be held in the memory of the family and is thus separated from the objective world. this separation denies the abso- luteness of its essence. therefore, the family searches for the dead one in the real world. however, it can only find the body of the lost individual. in its "work," i. e. , in the burying of the body, the family tries to reunite the dead body, by sacrificing its corporeality (the body is given back to "the bosom of the earth" (PhSp, 271)), with its absolute essence. this re-union, however, is the result of the family's actions. in its entombing of the dead family member, the family does justice to the pure self of the deceased. this justice, however, gets no place in the real world. the deceased, who is honored by the family, has taken a place in the underworld. individual and community, the right of the pure self and the right of the citizens of the state, do not need to be opposed. hegel formulates the deceased's right of entombing as the family's duty, i. e. , as the Divine law that is valid alongside the human law.
8. the Abstract Work of Art: the Representation of the Pure Self in the Public Domain
the definite banishment of the pure self to the underworld will fail. the pure and real self are internally united. this internal bond will inevi- tably lead to the penetration by the pure self of the public conscious- ness and, consequently, to the undermining of the state's stability. the moments of the pure self, the coming to self-consciousness at the level
religion in the form of art 113
of family in a process of experience that was structured in the form of Unhappy Consciousness, cannot remain hidden from the public con- sciousness. the decline of the polis, however, can, for the time being, be postponed because these moments are not expressed in the form of self- consciousness but in the form of representation, i. e. , as the works of the abstract art. the moments are represented as absolute works of art that have their own existence beside the statue and the temple that originally represent the harmonic unity of the polis. the pure self that exists for the family beside the objective world (as the subjective memory of the deceased) returns in the public consciousness in the form of the abstract works of art.
the penetration by the pure self of the public consciousness is done justice by hegel when he says that the sculptor does not recognize the activity of his actions in the statue. 13 the sculptor objectifies his pathos in the statue, like the citizen objectifies his pathos in the human law. the pathos of the artist, however, is not identical with its expression in the work of art but also encompasses the moment of freedom. the self of the artist has dissociated itself from its being immediately determined by the substance. the work of art is, as we have seen earlier, the result of the struggle between the pure activity of the artist and his pathos. insofar as the sculptor does not recognize his activity in the work, the work as well as the polis it represents loses its absolute status.
the substance of the polis can regain an absolute representation if the activity of the artist is also represented in the work. According to hegel, this happens in the hymn, the second form of the abstract work of art he discusses. At this level, the god is represented in the medium of the expressed language. in this medium, the work of art remains, in its objectivation, bound to the self. therefore, the separation between the self and the substance has been avoided. the hymn is not a thing like a statue or a temple which, once produced, keeps the activity of the self out- side itself. the hymn only exists in and by the performance of the people. here, the religious self-consciousness is "pure thought, or the devotion whose inwardness in the hymn has at the same time an outer existence" (PhSp, 430).
the reverse side of this alliance between the existence of the work of art and the activity of the self is that the existence of the work of art
13 "Since his work comes back to him simply as joyfulness, he does not find therein the painful labour of making himself into an artist, and of creation, nor the strain and effort of his work" (PhSp, 429).
? 114 paul cobben
is fleeting. the hymn is, in hegel's terminology "a vanishing existence" (PhSp, 432). the work's objectivity is too much confined in the self and, therefore, "falls short of attaining a lasting shape and is, like time, no longer immediately present in the very moment of its being present" (PhSp, 432).
now it becomes clear what hegel implicitly already indicated by using the term "Devotion. " in the hymn, the theoretical moment of the Unhappy Consciousness is objectified. in the hymn, the god is represented as an unchanging but impalpable being. the unhappiness of the Unhappy Con- sciousness is due to the contradiction in which it is involved. Because its 'god' remains impalpable, i. e. , it does not appear in the real world, this 'god' is (negatively) determined by the real world and, therefore, is not absolute. to rescue the absoluteness of this 'god', the Unhappy Conscious- ness looks for its reality. hegel illustrates this search with the example of the medieval crusades that tried to find the reality of god in the holy land. the crusaders, however, only found a grave (no real self has an eternal life). Consequently, the Unhappy Consciousness makes a second attempt to reconcile the absolute self with the real world. By sacrificing its real self, it tries to become unified with the pure self. if, however, the Unhappy Consciousness succeeds in overcoming its real self, the Consciousness itself appears to be the absolute essence of the real self.
the development of the abstract work is structured in accordance with the Unhappy Consciousness: the pure self that is represented in the hymn must be reconciled with the real world. in the abstract Cult, the third form of the abstract work, the real self is raised "into being the pure divine element" (PhSp, 433) by ritual actions: "a soul that cleanses its exterior by washing it, and puts on white robes, while its inward being traverses the imaginatively conceived path of works, punishments, and rewards, the path of spiritual training in general, i. e. of ridding itself of its particularity, as a result of which it reaches the dwellings and the community of the blest" (PhSp, 433).
like the search for the real self that is divine, the attempts of the abstract Cult will fail. the ritual actions cannot really change the real self into a divine self. therefore, a second attempt has to be made in the actual Cult, the fourth form of the abstract work. the actual Cult is the action that can be understood as a spiritual movement, "because it is this twofold process, on the one hand, of superseding the abstraction of the divine Being (which is how devotion determines its object) and making it actual, and, on the other hand, of superseding the actual (which is how the doer determines the object and himself) and raising it into universality" (PhSp, 433/4). the
religion in the form of art 115
central action of the actual Cult is an act of sacrifice. on the one hand, the divine Being is sacrificed: "the animal sacrificed is the symbol of a god; the fruits consumed are the living Ceres and Bacchus themselves" (PhSp, 434). on the other hand, the actual is sacrificed to divine Being: "with the pure surrender of a possession which the owner, apparently without any profit whatever to himself, pours away or lets rise up in smoke" (PhSp, 434). the result of these sacrifices is the transformation of the divine Being "into self-conscious existence, and the self has conscious- ness of its unity with the divine Being" (PhSp, 435).
in the unity of self and divine Being, the devotion is "robbed of its outer existence. " the Cult replaces this defect and "produces a dwelling and adornments for the glory of god" (PhSp, 435). once again, it appears that the labour in which the self sacrifices itself for the god ultimately shows that the real self is the essence of god: "the dwellings and halls of the god are for the use of man, the treasures preserved therein are his own in case of need; the honour and glory enjoyed by the god in his adornment are the honour and the glory of the nation, great in soul and in artistic achievement" (PhSp, 435).
9. the Polis as a harmonic Unity
in the previous paragraph, we saw that the loss of family members resulted in a dialectic movement structured according the Unhappy Conscious- ness. As a result of this movement, the family appeared as the essence of the pure self. the pathos of the family is expressed in the Divine law. the duty of the Divine law guarantees that the pure self of the deceased member remains preserved in the memory of the family. in this sense, the Divine law is, so to say, the institutional house of the pure self that is distinguished from the domain of the state.
the separation between human and Divine law seemed to protect the state from the undermining force of the pure self. the pure self, how- ever, is the presupposition of the freedom of the state's citizen. therefore, the penetration by the pure self of the public consciousness cannot be prevented; this penetration can only be postponed by representing the relation between citizen and polis in works of art, i. e. , as the fixed rela- tion between statue and temple. As a product of the artist, however, the work of art also presupposes the pure self and is, itself, undermined in its absoluteness. to repair the absoluteness of the work, the pure self is represented in its turn as an abstract work of art, structured according the
116 paul cobben
moments of the Unhappy Consciousness. this time, the result of the dia- lectic movement shows the state as the appearance of the pure self. the pathos of the state (expressed in the human law) is no longer separated from the pathos of the family, but is explicitly understood as the realiza- tion of the pure self.
now the polis can be conceptualized as a harmonic unity in which all the moments of Reason are objectified. the pure self that is institutional- ized in the family relates to the objective world of the state in which it can recognize its own essence. if the relation is theoretically considered, it appears as the reality of the observing reason: "What observation knew as a given object in which the self had no part, is here a given custom, but a reality which is at the same time the deed and the work of the subject finding it. " (PhSp, 276) from a practical perspective, it is the reality of the practical reason:
the individual who seeks the pleasure of enjoying his individuality, finds it in the family, and the necessity in which that pleasure passes away is his own self-consciousness as a citizen of his nation. or, again, it is in know- ing that the law of his own heart is the law of all hearts, in knowing the consciousness of the self as the acknowledged universal order; it is virtue, which enjoys the fruits of sacrifice, what brings about what it sets out to do, viz. to bring forth the essence into the light of day, and its enjoyment is this universal life. (PhSp, 276/7)
from a totalizing perspective, it is the reality of the matter in hand:
finally, consciousness of the 'matter in hand' itself finds satisfaction in the real substance which contains and preserves in a positive manner the abstract moments of that empty category. that substance has in the ethical powers, a genuine content that takes the place of the insubstantial com- mandments which sound Reason wanted to give and to know; and thus it gets an intrinsically determinate standard for testing, not the laws, but what is done. (PhSp, 277)
10. Repression of the Deed: the living Work of Art
the harmonic unity of the polis is only guaranteed when the citizens com- mit no deeds in the pregnant sense: their actions have to be in accor- dance with the prevailing human law. this guarantee fails, however, at the moment that the human law is understood as an expression of the pure self. the pure self is basically a free self that is able to commit any action or, at least, actions that are not in accordance with the prevailing human law. therefore, the harmony of the polis is dependent on restric-
religion in the form of art 117
tive conditions that must be imposed on possible actions. these condi- tions can be specified for the different relations that the free individual can take upon himself towards the polis, i. e. , they can be specified for the different moments of the objectified Reason that compose the polis. We will see that these conditions are represented in the living and the spiritual works of art.
