Hegel and Wittgenstein on God at the Beginning of the World
| Authors | |
|---|---|
| Year of publication | 2022 |
| Type | Article in Periodical |
| Magazine / Source | Cuadernos Salmantinos de Filosofia |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Web | https://summa.upsa.es/viewer.vm?id=148511&lang=es |
| Doi | http://dx.doi.org/10.36576/2660-9509.49.89 |
| Keywords | Hegel; Wittgenstein; God; pure thinking; logos; Gospel of John |
| Description | I argue that Hegel and Wittgenstein, each in their own specific way, used the idea of God at the beginning of creation as a complex analogy for other kinds of beginning, most notably the beginning of philosophical thought. Hegel’s Logic describes God’s mind before the creation of the world, i.e. God’s pure thinking. For a philosopher, beginning afresh means resolving to consider this kind of abstraction from the existence of the world. Wittgenstein, by contrast, says that the idea of a creator of the world does not explain anything. It marks the terminus ad quem of asking for explanations; we must not ask further who created the creator of the world. Wittgenstein generalizes this for any kind of reasoning: “Explanations come to an end somewhere.” (Philosophical Investigations: §1) Any sort of explanation must eventually arrive at its terminus ad quem, which means only that any kind of reasoning must have its logical beginning. |
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