ONLINE FIRST
published on April 19, 2017
Dennis Vanden Auweele
https://doi.org/10.5840/faithphil201741880
Reconciliation, Incarnation, and Headless Hegelianism
A number of contemporary authors (e.g., Catherine Malabou, Slavoj ?i?ek, and John Caputo) claim that Hegel¡¯s Religionsphilosophie provides important insights for contemporary philosophy of religion. John Caputo argues that Hegel¡¯s notion of incarnation as radical kenosis is a powerful tool for postmodern Radical Theology. In this essay, I scrutinize this claim by balancing Hegel¡¯s notion of incarnation with his notion of recognition¡ªthe latter of which Caputo removes from a ¡°headless Hegelianism.¡± I argue that a non-Hegelian, non-dialectic sense of recognition ought to be introduced in contemporary philosophy of religion to remove the confrontation with the Other from the realm of radical trauma.