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đŸȘ” The Threshold

God can be transcendent as pure difference without being an otherworldly entity

Properties2
tagsja-picks, define, question, contrarian_or_surprising, trade, singleton, xref, category/contrarian-or-surprising
aliases@malabou_future_2005, loc. 751

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God can be transcendent as pure difference without being an otherworldly entity

Evidence

But by repudiating the beyond in its temporal and spatial schema, doesn’t Hegel simultaneously repudiate time and space themselves, as well as the ontological distance that constitutes them? Has he forgotten that there may be a non-representational presentation of the beyond, one that is irreducible to the representational EntĂ€ußerung, indeed a speculative meaning of transcendence? If there is one, one conceived as pure difference, it would mark the irreducibility of God to the status of a pre-constituted entity, to an onto-theological God. It would no longer refer back to the promise of an ‘other world’, to something ‘outside the system’. — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel, 751

Categorization

  • DEFINE: Introduces the key distinction between representational transcendence (an ‘other world’ outside the system) and a speculative transcendence of pure difference internal to the system.
  • QUESTION: Whether this speculative, non-representational meaning of transcendence survives or is dissolved within Hegel’s own system is precisely what these closing pages probe.
  • XREF: connects to: God’s self-identity is differentiated and not empty even in pure thought — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel: Plasticity,
, 663; Believing in God is inseparable from anthropomorphizing God as a personlike mind — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed
, 77; Lay believers perceive God as a personlike mind, not an abstract force — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed
, 81

Broader Connections

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