L'éternité n'est pour Hegel ni une sempiternité, ni un « maintenant » ponctuel figé, encore moins une atemporalité abstraite. Quelle en est dès lors la signification positive ? L'éternité doit se comprendre plutôt comme un présent absolu, un présent total qui dépasse la négativité destructrice du temps naturel et se déploie dans deux domaines : la logique, où l'éternité est la coprésence des moments de l'Idée, et la sphère de l'esprit absolu, en laquelle l'éternité de l'esprit acquiert la dimension de (...) l'historicité, comme l'illustrent notamment l'histoire de la religion et l'histoire de la philosophie. Par cette double compréhension — logique et historique — de l'éternité, Hegel parvient à résoudre le paradoxe de l'historicité de l'esprit absolu et à saisir la possibilité de sa manifestation temporelle. Hegel's conception of eternity should be differenciated from never-ending progress, from the punctual « now » , or even more from an abstract timelessness. Hence what could be the positive meaning of such a notion ? Eternity should rather be understood in terms of an absolute présent, i. e. a total présent superseding the destructive negativity of natural time and spreading out into two fields : the eternity of logics is the co-existence of différent stages in the realm of Idea, and the eternity of the absolute spirit encompasses the dimension of historicity, as may be illustrated in the history of religion and the history of philosophy. Through such a twofold interprétation — i. e.both logical and historical — of eternity, Hegel suceeds in solving the paradox of the historicity of the absolute spirit and in grasping an understanding ofits temporal manifestations. (shrink)

IN ONE of the last seminars of his life, Heidegger remarks that just as Hegel was trying to lay the definitive foundation of the modern age, so was his friend Hölderlin trying to break through the ground of the age in order to inaugurate a step beyond modernity. For this reason, Heidegger clearly regards the poet as more radical than the philosopher. Without trying myself to assess the validity of this contrast, I shall take it as a clue and argue (...) that each was attempting to discover, and to build a time-design that could do justice to his epoch and respond to the experience of its historical destiny. The question that concerns this essay is just how Hegel construed and constructed such a philosophical designing of the time, and while important texts for this topic are thematized in his earlier writings and in his subsequent lectures, the central text must be the Phenomenology of Spirit. The aim of this discussion therefore is to determine the time-sense of the Phenomenology of Spirit and its phenomenology of Time, and to draw in other texts insofar as they illumine its matrix. (shrink)