Hegel a-t-il ignoré le problème de l'existence?

Abstract

This article attempts to grasp Hegel’s way of thinking about existence in general. The assumption is that he abandons the idea of existence as something given in perception or as something that realizes an essence. He defines three forms of existence in a structural sequence that can be found, albeit with different content, in many stages of the encyclopedic path. This structure contrasts a) "abstract" existence, withdrawn into itself, b) "finite" existence, inscribed in otherness but in tension with it, and c) existence "for itself", i.e. inscribed in otherness but ruling it. According to the hypothesis defended here, Hegelianism can be seen as a philosophy that, while showing no interest in either power-being or duty-being, places at the center of its investigation the diverse - and often precarious - ways in which the "whole" brings itself into being and enters into existence.