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Quotes from History and Truth in Hegel’s Phenomenology — Merold Westphal

born 1940 United States

← All quotes by Merold Westphal

4 quotes

Knowledge conceived as an instrument is a means to the end of power. The goal of philosophy, however, is not to gain power over the Absolute but to know it as it truly is.

History and Truth in Hegel’s Phenomenology (1979)

It is precisely the acceptance of political, ethical, and religious heteronomy which leads Hegel to label Judeo-Christian culture a slave culture.

History and Truth in Hegel’s Phenomenology (1979)

Hegel’s… deepest objections to the view of knowledge as method and power, as “controlling knowledge” (Scheler, Tillich) or “the logic of domination” (Marcuse), are moral. He agrees with Schiller that “utility is the great idol of the times.”

History and Truth in Hegel’s Phenomenology (1979)

Hegel’s lack of charity toward the instrument metaphor is not arbitrary. It represents his disenchantment with the assumption that knowledge is power and that method is the means to this end… Descartes’ conception of method, like Bacon’s, is linked to this idea of knowledge as an instrument of power… The same could be said of Locke. Hegel can rightly claim that the instrument metaphor pervades the epistemological tradition he is seeking to transcend.

History and Truth in Hegel’s Phenomenology (1979)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Merold Westphal (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.