But what if Hegel was attempting to show something essentially different? What if he was attempting to show that a refusal of consolidation is exactly what characterizes all being from the beginning? And that this original refusal, therefore, also characterizes truth, science and ‘the system of philosophy’?

Only consider this famous passage from the Vorrede to the Phänomenologie: Aber ein wesentliches Moment ist dies Geschiedene (…). Die Tätigkeit des Scheidens ist die Kraft und Arbeit (…) der verwundersamsten und größten oder vielmehr der absoluten Macht. (….) Der Tod, wenn wir jene Unwirklichkeit so nennen wollen, ist das Furchtbarste, und das Tote festzuhalten das, was die größte Kraft erfordert. (….) Aber nicht das Leben, das sich vor dem Tode scheut und von der Verwüstung rein bewahrt, sondern das ihn erträgt und in ihm sich erhält, ist das Leben des Geistes. Er gewinnt seine Wahrheit nur, indem er in der absoluten Zerrissenheit sich selbst findet.

Spirit wins its truth only insofar as it finds itself in absolute dismemberment.

This passage is full of important ambiguities which will be treated elsewhere. Suffice it to say here only that all the consolidationalist readings of Hegel have coincided with that triumph of modernity (< ‘modo’ = ‘now’, ‘just now’) in which the human past and the ecology of the planet (with its own essential relation to the past) find themselves threatened with extinction. Needless to say, this potential collapse of our spiritual and physical heritage imperils the future of both.

Learning to reread Hegel as beginning and ending with the refusal of consolidation may be one way, conceivably the only way, to exit this fate.

Notes:

a) Modernity (< ‘modo’ = ‘now’, ‘just now’) is that time in which consolidation reaches to the heart of time itself. What matters, what is real, what is me, is – only now. Heidegger therefore rightly sees that the question of how we conceive time is key to how we conceive being.

b) It may be that Heidegger may be read as attempting to answer the question: how to put what Hegel saw in a way which refuses the consolidation which has characterized the reading of his texts, but which retains his dedication to the idea that it is exactly an original break from consolidation which enables language, truth and all being?

Die philosophische Reflexion ist bedingt, oder die transzendentale Anschauung kommt ins Bewußtsein durch freie Abstraktion von aller Mannigfaltigkeit des empirischen Bewußtseins, und insofern ist sie ein Subjektives. Macht die philosophische Reflexion sich insofern selbst zum Gegenstand, so macht sie ein Bedingtes zum Prinzip ihrer Philosophie; um die transzendentale Anschauung rein zu fassen, muß sie noch von diesem Subjektiven abstrahieren, daß sie ihr als Grundlage der Philosophie weder subjektiv noch objektiv sei, weder Selbstbewußtsein, der Materie entgegengesetzt, noch Materie, entgegengesetzt dem Selbstbewußtsein, sondern absolute, weder subjektive, noch objektive Identität, reine transzendentale Anschauung. Als Gegenstand der Reflexion wird sie Subjekt und Objekt; diese Produkte der reinen Reflexion setzt die philosophische Reflexion in ihrer bleibenden Entgegensetzung ins Absolute. Die Entgegensetzung der spekulativen Reflexion ist nicht mehr ein Objekt und ein Subjekt, sondern eine subjektive transzendentale Anschauung und eine objektive transzendentale Anschauung, jene Ich, diese Natur – beides die höchsten Erscheinungen der absoluten sich selbst anschauenden Vernunft. Daß diese beiden Entgegengesetzten – sie heißen nun Ich und Natur, reines und empirisches Selbstbewußtsein, Erkennen und Sein, Sich-selbst-Setzen und Entgegensetzen, Endlichkeit und Unendlichkeit – zugleich in dem Absoluten gesetzt werden, in dieser Antinomie erblickt die gemeine Reflexion nichts als den Widerspruch, nur die Vernunft in diesem absoluten Widerspruche die Wahrheit, durch welchen beides gesetzt und beides vernichtet ist, weder beide, und beide zugleich sind.

Notes:

a) This is the last sentence of the main part of the 1801 Differenz des Fichteschen und Schellingschen Systems der Philosophie (a kind of appendix on Reinhold follows, as if the topic of the title, ‘Differenz des Fichteschen und Schellingschen Systems’, proved too short for Hegel’s printer). Here again, as elsewhere in his works, Hegel expresses his core thought in nuce in a kind of finishing flourish.

b) Hegel sets out three forms or powers “in dem Absoluten” which exactly mirror those of Plato in the gigantomachia: “Daß diese beiden Entgegengesetzten (…) zugleich in dem Absoluten gesetzt werden, in dieser Antinomie erblickt die gemeine Reflexion nichts als den Widerspruch, nur die Vernunft in diesem absoluten Widerspruche die Wahrheit, durch welchen beides gesetzt und beides vernichtet ist, weder beide, und beide zugleich sind.” What Hegel calls “die gemeine Reflexion” is the shared determination of the giants and the gods that the two represent in regard to each other “nichts als den Widerspruch”. Each can exist with the other only in strife: the gigantomachia. Only a fundamentally different determination (‘nur [!] die Vernunft’), like Plato’s philosophical child, can see “in diesem absoluten Widerspruche die Wahrheit, durch welchen beides gesetzt und beides vernichtet ist, weder beide, und beide zugleich sind.”

Der reine Begriff aber oder die Unendlichkeit als der Abgrund des Nichts, worin alles Sein versinkt, muß den unendlichen Schmerz, der vorher nur in der Bildung geschichtlich und als das Gefühl war, worauf die Religion der neuen Zeit beruht – das Gefühl: Gott selbst ist tot (dasjenige, was gleichsam nur empirisch ausgesprochen war mit Pascals Ausdrücken: “la nature est telle qu’elle marque partout un Dieu perdu et dans l’homme et hors de l’homme”) -, rein als Moment, aber auch nicht als mehr denn als Moment der höchsten Idee bezeichnen und so dem, was etwa auch entweder moralische Vorschrift einer Aufopferung des empirischen Wesens oder der Begriff formeller Abstraktion war, eine philosophische Existenz geben und also der Philosophie die Idee der absoluten Freiheit und damit das absolute Leiden oder den spekulativen Karfreitag, der sonst historisch war, und ihn selbst in der ganzen Wahrheit und Härte seiner Gottlosigkeit wiederherstellen, aus welcher Härte allein – weil das Heitere, Ungründlichere und Einzelnere der dogmatischen Philosophien sowie der Naturreligionen verschwinden muß – die höchste Totalität in ihrem ganzen Ernst und aus ihrem tiefsten Grunde, zugleich allumfassend und in die heiterste Freiheit ihrer Gestalt auferstehen kann und muß.

Notes:

a) Hegel habitually attempted to give the essence of his thought in the last sentence or two of his works. This text is the last sentence of Glauben und Wissen from 1802. (For the last sentences of the Differzschrift and Phänomenologie see the end of the Differenzschrift and “Nur” in Hegel and Heidegger)

b) What Hegel here calls “[d]er reine Begriff”, “die Unendlichkeit” and “alles Sein” must include, he says, as an essential aspect (“rein als Moment”), “der Abgrund des Nichts”, “unendlichen Schmerz” and “das absolute Leiden”. These result from the terrible insight (which at the same time is “die Idee der absoluten Freiheit”) that “Gott selbst ist tot”, of “Dieu perdu” and of “Gottlosigkeit”. The last sentence of the Phänomenologie similarly treats the “Schädelstätte des absoluten Geistes”.

c) Only (‘nur‘) when “der Abgrund des Nichts” is seen to have an essential ‘place’ at origin, in being itself, is it known that absolutely nothing vorhanden can limit human freedom. Even the great powers (gigantes) at origin are limited by the existence ‘there’ of other powers and of abysmal borders. “Limitation” is an equal power with them throughout all being.

d) Hegel wanted to give exoteric expression to the plurality and groundlessness of being itself. If he failed, it was not because he personally lacked this insight. Instead, his failure (or the failure of his posterity to grasp his insight in the form he was able to give it) seems to have been due to some combination of the following factors:

- the technology (the book, the essay, the philosophical argument) which Hegel had at his disposal was continuous and linear, but the insight he wanted to express was broken and multi-dimensional;

- the end Hegel attempted to reach was the truthful knowledge of truth, but this could imply a subjective consolidation and seamlessness (what Heidegger calls ‘metaphysics’) which stood in essential contradiction to his insight into fundamental plurality at origin;

- the nineteenth and twentieth centuries seem in retrospect to have been hellbent (at the cost hundreds of millions of human lives and the destruction of countless whole cultures and languages) to experience the meaning of “unendlichen Schmerz” and of “absolute[n] Leiden”. It was somehow not enough that millenia of art and myth and of history itself knew of incredible tragedy and incalulable loss. Instead, we somehow had to live out such tragedy for ourselves as if caught in the grip of a fate from which artistic expression and theoretical foreknowledge could provide no escape.

If we are to extricate ourselves from this fate, at last, it will be necessary to understand Hegel’s (and hardly only Hegel’s) insight in a new way, in a way which is at once more broken and yet more practical. This is the aim of gigantomachia…

Notes:

a) The key word “nur” appears here, as it nearly always does, when Heidegger comes to speak of the relations of Sein and Dasein. It specifically recalls the end of Hegel’s Phänomenologie because this is the moment where these relations were fittingly understood, by Hegel, and fatally misunderstood, by Hegel’s followers.

In the sense of this misunderstanding, all modernity ‘follows’ Hegel.

b) Heidegger turns to our misreading of Hegel immediately after the passage above:

Mensch und Sein sind einander übereignet. Sie gehören einander. Aus diesem nicht näher bedachten Zueinandergehören haben Mensch und Sein allererst diejenigen Wesensbestimmungen empfangen, in denen sie durch die Philosophie metaphysisch begriffen werden.
Dieses vorwaltende Zusammengehören von Mensch und Sein verkennen wir hartnäckig, solange wir alles nur in Ordnungen und Vermittlungen, sei es mit oder ohne Dialektik, vorstellen. Wir finden dann immer nur Verknüpfungen, die entweder vom Sein oder vom Menschen her geknüpft sind und das Zusammengehören von Mensch und Sein als Verflechtung darstellen. (‘Der Satz der Identität’, Identität und Differenz, S 19)

All misunderstandings of Hegel derive from a single error: the positing of ground as singular (“entweder vom Sein oder vom Menschen her”). Complexity must then either be declared illusion (“ohne Dialektic”) or secondary (“das Zusammengehören von Mensch und Sein als Verflechtung”).

Freundlos war der große Weltenmeister,
Fühlte Mangel – darum schuf er Geister,
Sel’ge Spiegel seiner Seligkeit!
Fand das höchste Wesen schon kein gleiches,
Aus dem Kelch des ganzen Seelenreiches
Schäumt ihm – die Unendlichkeit.

a) The complete poem reads:

Die Freundschaft

Freund! genügsam ist der Wesenlenker –
Schämen sich kleinmeisterische Denker,
Die so ängstlich nach Gesetzen spähn –
Geisterreich und Körperweltgewühle
Wälzet eines Rades Schwung zum Ziele,
Hier sah es mein Newton gehn.

Sphären lehrt es Sklaven eines Zaumes
Um das Herz des großen Weltenraumes
Labyrinthenbahnen ziehn –
Geister in umarmenden Systemen
Nach der großen Geistersonne strömen,
Wie zum Meere Bäche fliehn.

War’s nicht dies allmächtige Getriebe,
Das zum ew’gen Jubelbund der Liebe
Unsre Herzen aneinander zwang?
Raphael, an deinem Arm – o Wonne! –
Wag auch ich zur großen Geistersonne
Freudigmutig den Vollendungsgang.

Glücklich! glücklich! Dich hab ich gefunden,
Hab aus Millionen dich umwunden,
Und aus Millionen mein bist du –
Laß das Chaos diese Welt umrütteln,
Durcheinander die Atomen schütteln;
Ewig fliehn sich unsre Herzen zu.

Muß ich nicht aus deinen Flammenaugen
Meiner Wollust Widerstrahlen saugen?
Nur in dir bestaun ich mich –
Schöner malt sich mir die schöne Erde,
Heller spiegelt in des Freunds Gebärde,
Reizender der Himmel sich.

Schwermut wirft die bange Tränenlasten,
Süßer von des Leidens Sturm zu rasten,
In der Liebe Busen ab; –
Sucht nicht selbst das folternde Entzücken
In des Freunds beredten Strahlenblicken
Ungeduldig ein wollüstges Grab? –

Stünd im All der Schöpfung ich alleine,
Seelen träumt ich in die Felsensteine;
Und umarmend küßt ich sie –
Meine Klagen stöhnt ich in die Lüfte,
Freute mich, antworteten die Klüfte,
Thor genug! der süßen Sympathie.

Tote Gruppen sind wir – wenn wir hassen,
Götter – wenn wir liebend uns umfassen!
Lechzen nach dem süßen Fesselzwang –
Aufwärts durch die tausendfache Stufen
Zahlenloser Geister die nicht schufen
Waltet göttlich dieser Drang.

Arm in Arme, höher stets und höher,
Vom Mongolen bis zum griech’schen Seher,
Der sich an den letzten Seraph reiht,
Wallen wir, einmütgen Ringeltanzes,
Bis sich dort im Meer des ew’gen Glanzes
Sterbend untertauchen Maß und Zeit –

Freundlos war der große Weltenmeister,
Fühlte Mange1 – darum schuf er Geister,
Selge Spiegel seiner Seligkeit! –
Fand das höchste Wesen schon kein gleiches,
Aus dem Kelch des ganzen Seelenreiches
Schäumt ihm – die Unendlichkeit.

Allerdings nur solange Dasein ist, das heißt die ontische Möglichkeit von Seinsverständnis, „gibt es“ Sein. (SZ S 212, GA2 S 281)

Notes:

a) As always, Heidegger’s use of the word “nur” here alludes to the closing lines of Hegel’s Phänomenologie:

…beide zusammen, die begriffene Geschichte, bilden die Erinnerung und die Schädelstätte des absoluten Geistes, die Wirklichkeit, Wahrheit und Gewißheit seines Throns, ohne den er das leblose Einsame wäre; nur – ‘aus dem Kelche dieses Geisterreiches / schäumt ihm seine Unendlichkeit’.

Heidegger’s whole enterpise might be read as the extended attempt to explicate what is at stake in these lines from Hegel (and from Schiller’s Die Freundschaft).

In this crucial text from SZ Heidegger’s explication unfolds in three steps. First, he emphasizes that the being (“ist“) of Da-sein occurs at a decisive remove away from (von) being (Sein): it is “die ontische Möglichkeit von Seinsverständnis”. That is, it is that understanding of being (Seinsverständnis) which is possible among finite beings (Seienden, “die ontische”, “Dasein”). Similarly, Hegel speaks of “Geschichte”, of “dieses [endlichen] Geisterreich”, which occurs at that decisive and unrecallable remove from being (der absolute Geist for Hegel) marked by the death of God (golgatha, “die Schädelstätte“). So fundamental is this remove to spirit (Hegel) and being (Heidegger) that both specify that it is only (“nur”) in and through such unrecallable difference that there is („es gibt“) something like being or absolute spirit at all: “nur solange Dasein ist (…) „gibt es“ Sein”; “nur – ‘aus dem Kelche dieses [endlichen] Geisterreiches / schäumt ihm [dem absoluten Geiste] seine Unendlichkeit’.”

But, second, this remove from being is at the same time the exposure of being (objective genitive) in its essential character – which is exactly this remove. The setting loose of finite beings from being (absoluter Geist, Sein) does not, therefore, leave finite beings “only” on their own, “only” cut them off from being, it also exposes them to being its its truth. While humans are and remain exactly finite, indeed because humans are and remain exactly finite, there is yet “die ontische Möglichkeit von Seinsverständnis“, a possibility which Hegel sees as actual in “beide zusammen, die begriffene Geschichte”, that is, history which is genuinely understood in its being (“begriffen”). This understanding constitutes a true and fitting “Erinnerung” of being, where Erinnerung (memory, remembrance) does not only mean a trace recalled at a remove, but also a ‘situating in’, a ‘residing in’ (“Er-innerung”, where ‘innen’ means ‘to dwell’, as in English ‘inn’). The truth of being resides in and with the Geisterreichen of Dasein exactly in their finitude.

At the end of the Phänomenologie, Hegel is conducting a liturgy. “Erinnerung” alludes to the command at the heart of the Mass of the Eucharist: “Do this in memory of Me”. The Eucharist is at once a thanking [eucharios in Greek] and a sacrifice in which the priest repeats the original sacrifice of God at golgatha, “die Schädelstätte”. The re-calling is a re-enacting such that remove and repetition belong together, each enabling the other.

Third, the finite possibility of this “beide zusammen” (“die begriffene Geschichte”, “die ontische Möglichkeit von Seinsverständnis”) rests on the prior fundamental characteristic of being itself as plural. Hegel’s Geist and Heidegger’s Sein are what they are “only” in the original refusal of self-enclosure and of seamless identity. Heidegger asks: “Wie wäre es, wenn wir (…) einmal darauf achteten, ob und wie (…) vor allem ein Zu-einander-Gehören im Spiel ist?” (ID, S 18) It is this original (vor allem) play of plurality which yet belongs together in its difference which then allows and calls for the belonging together of infinite and finite being. It is the essence of being that “es gibt”: the gift and the radical outpouring and the ‘execution’ of being belong originally together since plurality (the gigantomachia) is unrecallable: “Die Kraft des Geistes [Seins] ist nur so groß als ihre Äußerung, seine Tiefe nur so tief, als er [es] in seiner Auslegung sich auszubreiten und sich zu verlieren getraut” (see ‘Nur in Hegel and Heidegger‘).

She is portrayed in triple form (Hekate Trimorphe) looking in three directions, usually with torches, to light her way in the dark, or with swords, to separate and to hold apart. She is goddess of the night and of the underworld and of those yet darker realms of the threshold and the crossway where an ‘unheeded neither’ (Beckett) allows both separation (of inside and outside, of direction) and jointure.

And she ['Asteria of happy name, whom Perses once led to his great house to be called his dear wife'] conceived and bore Hecate whom Zeus the son of Cronos honored above all. He gave her splendid gifts, to have a share of the earth and the unfruitful sea. She received honor also in starry heaven, and is honored exceedingly by the deathless gods. For to this day, whenever any one of men on earth offers rich sacrifices and prays for favor according to custom, he calls upon Hecate. Great honor comes full easily to him whose prayers the goddess receives favorably, and she bestows wealth upon him; for the power surely is with her. For as many as were born of Earth and Ocean amongst all these she has her due portion. The son of Cronos [Zeus] did her no wrong nor took anything away of all that was her portion among the former Titan gods: but she holds, as the division was at the first from the beginning, privilege both in earth, and in heaven, and in sea. Also, because she is an only child [ie, not supported by brothers], the goddess receives not less honor, but much more still, for [not a brother, but] Zeus honors her. Whom she will, she greatly aids and advances: she sits by worshipful kings in judgement, and in the assembly whom she will is distinguished among the people. And when men arm themselves for the battle that destroys men, then the goddess is at hand to give victory and grant glory readily to whom she will. Good is she also when men contend at the games, for there too the goddess is with them and profits them: and he who by might and strength gets the victory wins the rich prize easily with joy, and brings glory to his parents. And she is good to stand by horsemen, whom she will: and to those whose business is in the grey discomfortable sea, and who pray to Hecate and the loud-crashing Earth-Shaker, easily the glorious goddess gives great catch, and easily she takes it away as soon as seen, if so she will. She is good in the byre with Hermes to increase the stock. The droves of kine and wide herds of goats and flocks of fleecy sheep, if she will, she increases from a few, or makes many to be less. So, then, albeit her mother’s only child, she is honored amongst all the deathless gods. And the son of Cronos made her a nurse of the young who after that day saw with their eyes the light of all-seeing Dawn. So from the beginning she is a nurse of the young, and these are her honors. (Hesiod, Theogony 405ff)

Hekate Enoidia [of the roads and pathways], Triodite [of the three ways], lovely dame, of earthly, watery, and celestial frame, sepulchral, in a saffron veil arrayed, pleased with dark ghosts that wander through the shade; Perseia [daughter of the titan Perses], solitary goddess [only child], hail! The world’s key-bearer, never doomed to fail; in stags rejoicing, huntress, nightly seen, and drawn by bulls, unconquerable queen; Leader, nymph, nurse, on mountains wandering, hear the suppliants who with holy rites thy power revere, and to the herdsman with a favouring mind draw near. (Orphic Hymn to Hecate)

the lady Hekate was minister and companion to Persephone (Homeric Hymn to Demeter)

I have heard it foretold, that one day the Athenians would dispense justice in their own houses, that each citizen would have himself a little tribunal constructed in his porch similar to the altars of Hecate, and that there would be such before every door. (Aristophanes, Wasps 800ff)

Hecate whose name is howled by night at the city cross-roads. (Virgil, Aeneid 4.609)

She sprinkled them with harmful drugs and poisonous juices, summoning Night and the gods of Night, from Erebus and Chaos, and calling on Hecate with long wailing cries. Marvellous to say, the trees tore from their roots, the earth rumbled, the surrounding woods turned white, and the grass she sprinkled was wet with drops of blood. And the stones seemed to emit harsh groans, and dogs to bark, and the ground to crawl with black snakes, and the ghostly shades of the dead to hover. The terrified band shuddered at these monstrosities. She touched the fearful, stunned, faces with her wand, and, at its contact, the monstrous forms of various wild beasts appeared, as the warriors were transformed: none of them retained his human form. (Ovid, Metamorphoses 14.400ff)

You see Hecate’s faces turned in three directions to protect the triple crossroads. (Ovid, Fasti 1.141)

Of the gods, the Aiginetans worship most Hekate, in whose honour every year they celebrate mystic rites which, they say, Orpheus the Thrakian established among them. (Pausanias, Description of Greece 2.30)

Notes:

a) There are three parties in the gigantomachia with two competing logics. These logics have essentially different conceptions of borders. For the giants and the gods, borders are improper and temporary and their very existence is not only questionable but wrong. Each is therefore resolved to fight with the other to death: as Plato says, “an interminable battle is always going on between the two camps”.

b) In “Live not by lies”, written in 1974 just before his forced exile, Solzhenitsyn describes these two sorts of borders as follows. On the one hand there is the artificial border implicated in the logic of the giants and the gods: “the gangrenous boundary” where we “paste together the dead bones and scales of ideology” or “sew together the rotting rags”. Here a border serves only to throw together an illegitimate whole (one which the gods and the giants recognize only as a cause for combat and which they attempt to eradicate). On the other hand, there is the border created when we “sever ourselves from (…) Lies” which “opens a breach in the imaginary encirclement caused by our inaction” and “cuts short their (the lies) existence”. Here the border sets free by opening a transitive pathway to a different way of thought and of living.

c) Note a) above speaks of the ‘logics’ at origin – why not of the ‘ontologies’? This is especially to be wondered when ‘logic’ is an obvious part of ‘onto-logy’. The answer has to do with exactly this whole-part relation. The parties competing at origin, the giants, gods and child, are three different fundamental powers or fundamental shapes or fundamental ontologies. Each has a certain logic, a certain theory of borders and a certain ‘identification’. The gods and the giants share the same logic and the same conception of borders: namely, they agree that “true reality” is one and that plurality is only apparent and illegitimate. But each of the two has an opposite ‘identification’. The gods identify “true reality” as ideational and formal. The giants identify “true reality” as material and particular. When Plato notes that “an interminable battle is always going on between the two camps” this is because of this opposed identification – but also because of their shared logic and conception of borders! In fact, it is only on account of the latter that the former (different identification) can lead to war. This can be seen in the child. Here there is a different logic, a different conception of borders and a different mode of identification. The child holds that “true reality” is plural and that complexity is legitimate. Borders in this view both enable plurality and hold it together. The child therefore identifies both sides as “true realty”. What leads to war between the gods and the giants is, therefore, not the identification they make, but the totalitarian mode of their identification!

(d) The gigantomachia can be discussed from a variety of perspectives. When it is a matter of the three contestants it is approprate to speak of ontologies. When, however, it is a matter of the properties of these ontologies, it is appropriate to speak of their logics. ‘Logic’ in this context speaks to the question of the structure which is attributed to “true reality” (on, onta, ontic) in the three onto-logies.

…beide zusammen, die begriffene Geschichte, bilden die Erinnerung und die Schädelstätte des absoluten Geistes, die Wirklichkeit, Wahrheit und Gewißheit seines Throns, ohne den er das leblose Einsame wäre; nur – ‘aus dem Kelche dieses Geisterreiches / schäumt ihm seine Unendlichkeit.’

Heidegger decidely does not read Hegel to be saying at this decisive point that ‘only’ humans supply consciousness and subjectivity to a universe otherwise lacking these esteemed commodities. Nor does he take the opposite tact (also common in Hegel interpretation) that consciousness has nothing to do with human being, is inherently divine, but has somehow become alienated (as one says) in history. It therefore has to be returned, or to return itself, to its Proper Owner. This occurs, it is supposed, ‘only’ through a ludicrously complicated process culminating in Hegel’s brain (so that Hegel is read as thinking himself into his own self-identity as God).

Instead of these ridiculous and utterly gnostic (but pervasive and influential) readings, Heidegger takes Hegel, properly, to be saying that finite spirit marks that extreme ex-pression of the divine that culminates in the cross (Schädelstätte des absoluten Geistes). As Hegel remarks at the start of the ‘Vorrede’ to the Phänomenologie:

“Die Kraft des Geistes ist nur [!] so groß als ihre Äußerung, seine Tiefe nur [!] so tief, als er in seiner Auslegung sich auszubreiten und sich zu verlieren getraut.”

Here is commentary from Heidegger:

Nur die Kälte der Kuhnheit des Denkens und die Nacht der Irre des Fragens leihen dem Feuer des Seyns Glut und Licht. (Beiträge, GA 65, S 430)

Der Mensch ist eigentlich dieser Bezug der Entsprechung [dem Sein], und er ist nur dies. “Nur” – dies meint keine Beschränkung, sondern ein Übermaß. ID 18

As Heidegger makes clear in these texts, it is not light which humans introduce into history, but darkness (die Schädelstätte). This dark is, however, not only a limitation (Beschränkung), but is at the same time a many-sided fullness (Übermaß) showing, eg, the range of the possibilities to which Dasein is exposed, as well (and first of all) as the extreme Enteignis des Seins (objective and subjective genitive). Heidegger’s point in regard to Sein (Seyn/Sein) is exactly that of Hegel in regard to Geist:

“Die Kraft des Geistes [Seins] ist nur so groß als ihre Äußerung, seine Tiefe nur so tief, als er [es] in seiner Auslegung sich auszubreiten und sich zu verlieren getraut.”