Selbstbewusstsein und Geist

Abstract

Dieter Henrich, in a famous talk of 1970, gives Hölderlin’s thought a clear preference over that of Hegel, insofar as he recognizes in Hölderlin the one who traces human consciousness with all its thinking and acting back to a ground, to ‘Being par excellence’, while he sees in Hegel the one who rejects precisely this departure of philosophy from an unfathomable ground inaccessible to the mind. Hegel focuses on the question of thought develops, be it that of the experience of consciousness as an individual and social–historical process (subject and moral substance), as in the Phenomenology of Spirit, be it the opening up of a Logical Space, as in the Science of Logic. For Henrich, the fact that Hegel has logic begin with a being that is empty like nothingness, is interchangeable with it, and is likewise its other, in order to make becoming speculatively intelligible, is not a viable philosophical option. He sees in Hegel only the dialectical process at work, which, although also present in Hölderlin's thought with its conflicting opposites, is nevertheless grounded in a being that precedes consciousness.

Es ist ein markanter und schöner Zufall, dass ich im Jahr der 250. Geburtstagsjubiläen die Gelegenheit finden sollte, über Dieter Henrichs Hölderlin-Forschung und dessen Selbstbewusstseinskonzeption zu sprechen, was veranlasste, über den Jubiläums-Vortrag von 1970 nachzudenken.

Ich danke David Hellbrück herzlich für die sehr sorgfältige redaktionelle Durchsicht dieses Beitrags.