Below you will find some more details about the presentation and Andrew's bio. To RSVP and receive the Zoom details, please email cprse@icscanada.edu. We hope to see you then!
Presentation Abstract:
Matters of conscience are often described as involving an ultimate commitment or call to action, one that transcends the universal requirements of law and engages our singularity as individuals, and thus speaks to us in the privacy of our inward lives, which we convey to others only derivatively and secondarily. Although it takes seriously the experience of an “inner voice” of conscientious commitment, Hegel’s account of conscience in the Phenomenology of Spirit presents a challenge to the privacy criterion, showing how the other features of conscience—ultimacy and singularity—imply an understanding of conscience as inherently communicative. My presentation traces this description of conscience as it appears in Hegel’s text, and attends specifically to the unique gestures of confession and forgiveness that Hegel associates with the communication of conscience. I explore what has been called Hegel’s “sacramental” understanding of confession and forgiveness, and outline a significant implication for the understanding of religious language. Although Hegel’s analysis enables an interpretation of forgiveness as a distinctly theological form of speech, it demonstrates the impossibility (logically speaking) of claiming to possess the terms of forgiveness within any one particular theological or religious idiom.
Andrew’s Bio:
Andrew Tebbutt is Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Centre for Philosophy, Religion, and Social Ethics at the Institute for Christian Studies. Drawing on phenomenology and German idealism, Andrew’s research explores the significance of ethical and religious community for the cultivation of personal identity and the development of political responsibility, and applies this work to current discussions about the legitimacy of religious contributions to public discourse, interreligious dialogue, and the nature of secularity. He is currently developing a book project on the efficacy of forgiveness as a model for interreligious dialogue, based on his doctoral research on the intersection of forgiveness and religion in G. W. F. Hegel’s philosophy. Andrew also teaches and researches in the areas of German idealism, phenomenology, and existentialism more generally, in particular through figures such as Immanuel Kant, Friedrich Nietzsche, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Hannah Arendt, and Paul Ricoeur.
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Research Associate Lecture with Dr. Andrew Tebbutt
Tuesday, April 19th 2022, 3:00pm - 4:30pm EDT
Please email cprse@icscanada.edu for Zoom Meeting details
