Reason and Revelation in Hegel
Metaphysical Dimension of the Absolute

By (author) Jeffrey Reid

ISBN13: 9781487563646

Imprint: University of Toronto Press

Publisher: University of Toronto Press

Format: Hardback

Published: 21/11/2025

Availability: Not yet available

Description
Scholar and philosopher Jeffrey Reid’s latest monograph, Reason and Revelation in Hegel, offers a new understanding of Hegel’s metaphysical thought, centring on the Absolute’s self-revelatory agency – its unfolding through nature, human thought, and history. Structured in four sections, the book explores absolute agency and the relationship between eternal truth and historical temporality. How does absolute presence take place in art, religion, and philosophy? Finally, questions of systematicity and meaning are engaged with reference to the Big Bang universe, our experience of music, and the question of what Hegel’s Science leaves behind. Reason and Revelation in Hegel stands out in the landscape of Hegelian studies, where dominant trends often downplay metaphysical dimensions in favor of analytic, materialist, and secular interpretations. Rather than reducing Hegel’s religious ideas to cultural phenomena or aspirational human consciousness, Reid argues that the Absolute is not a distant metaphysical object but an active, performative force within rational human striving itself. In this view, the failures of historical actuality become openings for philosophical truth – shaped by, and inseparable from, eternal revelation.
Part 1: Absolute Agency and Revelation 1. Reason and Revelation: The Limits of Worldly Actuality 2. Absolute Selfhood and the Otherness of Nature 3. Comets, Moons, and the Voices of Nature Part 2: The Temporality of Reason 4. History and the Absolute Now 5. Knowledge of God and the Perils of Insight 6. Overcoming (Mis)Understanding: The Language of Representation Part 3: Speculative Forms of Presence 7. The Death of God and the Beautiful Finitude of Art 8. The Hermeneutics of Worship 9. Philosophy and Its Scientific Conclusion (Schluss) Part 4: After the Schluss: Da Capo al Fini 10. Organic Systematicity and Its Excremental Challenge 11. Reason, Revelation, and the Big Bang 12. Absolute Music and Meaningfulness
  • Philosophy
  • Philosophy of religion
  • Religious issues & debates
  • History of ideas
  • Professional & Vocational
  • Tertiary Education (US: College)
Height:229
Width:152
Spine:25
Weight:1.00
List Price: £46.00