Hegel arranges art, religion, and philosophy on a scale. Art, bound to sensuous external stuff, is the lowest self-expression of Geist , religion’s representation ( Vorstellung ) climbs a bit higher, but the peak comes with the pure, transparent, total conceptual clarity achieved in philosophy.
Only: Even philosophy has to use language; and language, as Hamann insisted, is a perfect hypostatic union of sensible and intelligible. From Hamann’s perspective, Hegel is just as much a gnostic and an enthusiast as Kant.
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