Hegel's Approach to Religion: The Dialectic of Speculation and Phenomenology

Hegel envisioned his philosophical enterprise as a "System of Science" that would encompass all finite realities in a systematic grasp of absolute reality. He also envisioned, initially at least, two ways of entry into this system. Part 1 would be "The Science of the Experience of Consciousness"the Phenomenology of Spirit of 1807, described as a "pathway to science" or as a "ladder" to the absolute standpoint. Part 2 would be the Science of Logic, published during the period 1812-16. These represent, respectively, the phenomenological and the logical (or speculative) entrees to the system. These two "sciences" were combined in the Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences (1817) but in reverse order and with the addition of a second, middle part, the philosophy of nature. The third part of the Encyclopedia, the philosophy of spirit, encompassed not only materials found in the Phenomenology of Spirit but also those covered by the