Hello Bill,

Without question the Unhappy Consciousness section is about the historical development of Christianity.

There is no mention in the section of monasticism of any kind. Certainly it has nothing to do with Hinduism or Buddhism--or anything, really, but Christianity (and the intellectual situation of Rome, where Christianity came to be).

But this doesn't imply Christianity is a failed form of consciousness. The Unhappy Consciousness section supplies the final three moments of the Self-consciousness chapter. The Self-consciousness chapter pretty much stands alone (as do all the moments that make up the Phenomenology of Spirit). It begins with Desire or Life (or whatever you want to call the first untitled section) and it ends with the third form of Unhappy Consciousness which is, essentially, the "I" of reason that sees itself as all reality. So even just in itself it isn't a failed moment.

But when seen in the structure of the book as a whole, as I mentioned a while back, it is just the first of three times that Hegel deals with Christianity in the book. He deals with it a second time as the faith that is opposed by 18th century French Enlightenment. Then he deals with it finally in the Revealed Religion section, where he presents his own Christian theology.

This might correspond to the idea set forth by--I forget his name--at the end of the Middle Ages that history has three moments corresponding to Father, Son and Spirit. The Unhappy Consciousness, especially as it first appears, would suggest the age of the Father. Christianity as purely a matter of belief in 18th century France would seem to correspond to the age of the Son. And Hegel's own theology, then, could be seen as inaugurating the final age of the Spirit.

John