Hegel thought it a mark of the modern age that philosophy had taken over from art and religion as the custodian of truth. The World Spirit had come to self-consciousness in his own head, rendering any less rational form of knowledge outmoded. Yet religion has retained its capacity to spark riots and launch civil wars, while art has survived as a refined version of religion for the intelligentsia: most aesthetic concepts are displaced theology. Besides, philosophy proved too abstract to stand in for the passionate certitudes of faith or the sensuous immediacy of the work of art. Some more tangible alternative to religion was demanded; and as the 19th century drew on, this role was filled by the human sciences, a reflection of the human species's endless, narcissistic fascination with itself.

LRB 8 June 2006 | PDF Download