Hegel's Philosophy of Reality, Freedom, and God

Modern philosophy and social thought are preoccupied with the individual, or (as philosophers often entitle her) “the subject.” We analyze and address ourselves to a person who either does or should think for herself, seek to satisfy her own preferences, seek to be herself, and possess her own freedom and rights. On the other hand, we wonder whether in this preoccupation we might be missing something of fundamental importance. Empirical scientists tell us that what we call “thinking for ourselves” is really just another causally determined process in nature; skeptics tell us that we have no reason to think that thought of this kind can give us access to reality; post-modernists tell us that the subject or the self, itself, is an illusion; defenders of “traditional values” tell us that there is nothing to deter a subject or a self that sets its authority above that of tradition from disregarding the rights and interests of others; and religious thinkers tell us that insistence on one's own freedom and independence may prevent one from experiencing the affiliation with reality as a whole, and the resulting meaning, value, and identity, that can be found through a relationship with God. All of these critics are likely to suggest that the mere existence of an individual, as such, gives no access to any authoritative conception of value.