Die absolute Reflexion und ihre Kritik in drei Modellen: Hegel – Jacobi – Adorno

Abstract The term ‘German Idealism’ is used to describe the philosophy of thinkers from Kant to Hegel or, alternatively, from Kant to Schelling. The article shows why Hegel, in contrast to the commonly held idealistic understanding of his philosophy, had to carry out the essential part of his project in a post-idealistic way. His starting point was the figure of absolute reflection against the background of Jacobi’s diagnosis of nihilism. Hegel’s sublation of absolute reflection through the intrusion of external reflection introduces the consideration of the other, in the strong sense, into the logical process. It is instructive to contrast Hegel’s proposal with the models of two other authors, Jacobi and Adorno, whose critiques of absolute reflection are strikingly similar to one another. Both are concerned with the assertion of a “double mode of behaviour” rather than the immanence of a continuous movement of thought. This has conceptual consequences for theory design: a genuine impulse from outside is indispensable which is not reflection but experience.