Hvad må verden begynde med? – En undersøgelse af lysvæsenet i Phänomenologie des Geistes

Resumé

The paper seeks to unfold a passage towards the end of The Phenomenology of Spirit by Hegel named Das Lichtwesen. The passage is found at the beginning of the section on religion, which constitutes the point in the development of spirit, wherein the spirit has gained a knowledge of itself but in a metaphorical and sensuous form. The paper argues that there are striking similarities between this passage and the sections of the Science of Logic concerning being, nothing, and becoming and engages in a comparative analysis between these. The theory interprets the determinations made in the passage of Das Lichtwesen as an explication of a cosmogony, anthropogony and, with a constructed neologism, an epistemogony respectively, i.e. an explication of the origins of being, humankind and the latter’s knowledge of the world. The hypothesis is that the Lichtwesen is a metaphysical correlate of the abstract and purely logical determinations of the beginning made in the Science of Logic and therefore constitutes the beginning in a more originary, metaphysical sense.