Understanding, radicalising and illuminating the Enlightenment: Hegel’s use of “Lumières” and “Aufklärung” for an enlightened philosophy

The paper intends to reconstruct the various phases of Hegel's confrontation with the Enlightenment, from youth to maturity. The youthful immersion in Enlightenment culture that had seen the young Hegel express enthusiasm for the French Revolution would gradually see him critically confronted with a political-cultural program in which he would identify deep contradictions and lacunae. For this reason Hegel undertakes from Tübingen to Frankfurt, to review and radicalize the Enlightenment, considering it as the affirmation of reason in a collective and social sphere that thus allows for the overcoming of the split between the learned few and the popular masses. Subsequently, from Jena to Berlin, Hegel instead questions himself on how to enlighten the Enlightenment.