I argue that Hegel’s immaterialist metaphysics provides a viable alternative to those dissatisfied with a “disenchanted” materialism. I defend a “minimalist critique of materialism.” I show that what Hegel criticizes in materialism is not the reality of matter, but only its ultimate reality. I show that he maintains a “minimalist conception of immateriality.” I argue that he operates with a very specific notion of matter referring to mutually independent entities formed by means of external action upon them. So he is referring to entities that are not material, i.e. that are not mutually interrelated and/or are formed by means of their internal activity upon themselves. Adopting this “minimalist conception,” Hegel thinks, changes how we see the way things are. He thus starts to speak about how all things strive toward some ultimate immateriality. This is the “transformational conception of immateriality.” While this part of Hegel’s critique is problematic, I contend that Hegel’s extravagances are just his way of incorporating an expansive, “re-enchanted” conception of nature that allows material reality to exist alongside immaterial entities as Hegel conceives them.

In 1817, Hegel published a condensed articulation of his basic philosophical commitments, designed to help make his notoriously difficult lectures a bit easier to follow. He titled this compendium the Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences in Basic Outline and, for the rest of his life, made consistent use of it in his classes, constantly amending it until its last, more detailed version was published in 1830. That Hegel called this text an “encyclopedia” was as bold a choice as it was strange. For on the one hand, it of course suggests that Hegel saw his own knowledge and system of philosophy as encyclopedic. But on the other hand, the text also bears no structural resemblance to any other encyclopedia.