Critical philosophy secretly continues Protestantism’s religious consciousness

Evidence

In the Hegelian analysis of Faith and Knowledge, a primary axis is formed by the demonstration that this ‘nihilism’ is in fact a radicalization of ‘the poetry of grief’ of Protestantism and the outcome of its ‘infinite nostalgia’. Critical philosophy, at the very moment when it believed itself definitively emancipated from its relation to theology, emerges in fact as the translation of a certain moment in religious consciousness: T H E D E AT H O F G O D A N D T H E D E AT H O F P H I L O S O P H Y The great form of the world spirit that has come to cognition of itself in these philosophies (of Kant, Jacobi and Fichte), is the principle of the North, and from the religious point of view, of Protestantism. — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel, 796

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: The counterintuitive claim that Enlightenment reason, believing itself emancipated from theology, is actually the continuation of Protestant piety — and that philosophy emerges as a translation of a religious moment — is a dense reversal worth sitting with.
• XREF: Connects to Malabou’s overarching thesis that concepts (here, of knowledge/reason) carry within them their own negation or historical-religious inheritance — the plasticity of the concept across philosophy and faith. — connects to: Enlightenment nihilism is a translation of Protestant religious consciousness, not an escape from it; Protestantism’s rejection of finite mediation makes the infinite abstract and unreachable — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel: Plasticity,…, 802; Revealed Religion and Enlightenment philosophy share one structural content despite apparent opposition — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel: Plasticity,…, 809 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Enlightenment nihilism is a translation of Protestant religious consciousness, not an escape from it #corroborates (0.93)
• Revealed Religion and Enlightenment philosophy share one structural content despite apparent opposition #corroborates (0.87) — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel, 809
• The religion-secularism divide is a modern Protestant construction #expands (0.78) — Nadim N. Rouhana and Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, When Politics Are Sacralized, 306
• Protestantism’s rejection of finite mediation makes the infinite abstract and unreachable #expands (0.75) — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel, 802