Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-mlc7c Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-06T00:21:06.207Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Hegel’s Criticism of Hinduism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 September 2016

Jon Stewart*
Affiliation:
Søren Kierkegaard Research Centre, University of Copenhagen, [email protected]
Get access

Abstract

In his Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion Hegel critically refers to Hinduism as ‘The Religion of Imagination’ or, in another translation, ‘The Religion of Phantasy’. Hegel’s study of Hinduism came during the period when there was a rapidly growing interest in India, indeed, an Indomania, in the German-speaking world. Hegel meticulously kept up with the most recent publications in the field. This article examines Hegel’s critical assessment of Hinduism in order to determine what specifically he finds objectionable in it. It is argued that his objection ultimately concerns what he takes to be the mistaken conception of what it is to be a human being that underlies the Hindu view. This conception, he claims, undermines the development of subjective freedom that he takes to be so important.

Type
Articles
Copyright
© The Hegel Society of Great Britain 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Anonymous (1820), ‘Sur l’Elévation des Montagnes de l’Inde, par Alexandre de Humboldt’, The Quarterly Review 22: 415430.Google Scholar
App, U. (2008), ‘The Tibet of the Philosophers: Kant, Hegel, and Schopenhauer’, in M. Esposito (ed.), Images of Tibet in the 19th and 20th Centuries vols. 1–2. Paris: École française d’Extrême-Orient.Google Scholar
Cruysberghs, P. (2012), ‘Hinduism: A Religion of Fantasy’, in B. Labuschagne and T. Slootweg (eds.), Hegel’s Philosophy of the Historical Religions. Leiden and Boston: Brill.Google Scholar
Dow, A. (1768), The History of Hindostan; From the Earliest Account of Time, to the Death of Akbar; Translated from the Persian of Mahummud Casim Ferishta of Delhi: Together with a Dissertation Concerning the Religion and Philosophy of the Brahmins vols. 1–2. London: T. Becket and P. A. De Hondt.Google Scholar
Germana, N. A. (2009), The Orient of Europe: The Mythical Image of India and Competing Images of German National Identity. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.Google Scholar
Glasenapp, H. von (1960), Das Indienbild deutscher Denker. Stuttgart: Koehler.Google Scholar
Halbfass, W. (1987), ‘Hegel, Schelling, Schopenhauer und Indien’, Zeitschrift für Kulturaustausch 37: 424433.Google Scholar
Herling, B. L. (2006), The German Gita: Hermeneutics and Discipline in the German Reception of Indian Thought, 17781831 . New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Hulin, M. (1979), Hegel et l’orient, suivi de la traduction annotée d’un essai de Hegel sur la Bhagavad-Gita. Paris: Vrin.Google Scholar
Kant, I. (1996), ‘Lectures on the Philosophical Doctrine of Religion’, in Religion and Rational Theology, ed. and trans A. W. Wood and G. di Giovanni. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kreis, F. (1941), ‘Hegels Interpretation der indischen Geisteswelt’, Zeitschrift für Deutsche Kulturphilosophie 7: 133145.Google Scholar
Leuze, R. (1975), Die außerchristlichen Religionen bei Hegel. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.Google Scholar
McGetchin, D. T. (2009), Indology, Indomania, and Orientalism: Ancient India’s Rebirth in Modern Germany. Madison NJ: Farleigh Dickensen University Press.Google Scholar
Menze, C. (1986), ‘Das indische Altertum in der Sicht Wilhelm von Humboldts und Hegels’, in A. Gethmann-Siefert and O. Pöggeler (eds.), Werk und Wirkung von Hegels Ästhetik. Bonn: Bouvier.Google Scholar
Mitter, P. (1977), Much Maligned Monsters: History of European Reactions to Indian Art. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Ruben, W. (1954), ‘Hegel über die Philosophie der Inder’, in Asiatica, Festschrift Friedrich Weller. Leipzig: Harrassowitz.Google Scholar
Schulin, E. (1958), Die weltgeschichtliche Erfassung des Orients bei Hegel und Ranke. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht.Google Scholar
Sommerfeld, S. (1943), Indienschau und Indiendeutung romantischer Philosophen. Zurich: Rascher.Google Scholar
Viyagappa, I. (1980), G. W. F. Hegel’s Concept of Indian Philosophy. Rome: Gregorian University Press.Google Scholar
Westphal, M. (1989), ‘Hegel, Hinduism, and Freedom’, The Owl of Minerva 20: 193204.Google Scholar