The Two Faces of Antigone in Hegel's _Phenomenology of Spirit_

Sophocles’s tragedy, Antigone, is evoked twice in Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, once near the beginning of chapter six (Spirit), in the Ethical Order (Sittlichkeit) section, and again, in chapter seven, on Religion, in the section on the Spiritual Work of Art. Each occurrence presents a significantly distinct perspective on the play, which represents, for Hegel, the paradigmatic expression of Greek tragedy. Reflecting on the specificity of each occurrence not only sheds light on Hegel’s views on tragedy but reveals a fundamental and generally ignored binary division within Hegelian philosophy itself, and its systematic reconciliation. The transition from the Phenomenology’s Spirit chapter to Religion presents a crucial shift; from the narrative recounted from the perspective of human reason, we move to that of absolute revelation. In Religion, we thus have the outline of the same story that has been presented in the earlier chapters of the Phenomenology but now told through the experiences of a different protagonist, the Absolute itself. Without this second, “religious” point of view, the story that Hegel recounts would end in the endless strivings of human morality, in the ambiguous considerations of confession and forgiveness that close chapter six. The twin narratives of reason and revelation can then be brought together in the short, dense final chapter, Absolute Knowing. Hegel’s two presentations of the Antigone tragedy in Spirit and Religion are informed by this fundamental distinction between human and absolute agencies, as well as their complicity. By reflecting upon the two appearances of Antigone, in the Phenomenology, we apprehend both the difference and the complicity between the two narratives: the strivings of human reason and the agency of absolute revelation. Thus, we gain a holistic insight into the system that Hegel calls Science.