Phénoménologie de la conscience religieuse

Jean-Louis Vieillard-Baron : Phenomenology of religious consciousness. The awakening of a religious consciousness in the last decades of the 18th C. can be seen in revolutionary ideology (Saint-Just, Danton, Robespierre) in which Revolution becomes Revelation. Fichte expresses this attitude in philosophy. In the aesthetic field we see a religious taste for the sublime. The intériorisation of religion is present in Hemsterhuis and Dutoit-Membriné. It takes new forms in Schleiermacher's Discourse on Religion (1799) and Chateaubriand's Génie du christianisme (1802), in which the exotic and sentimental are primordial. In 1807, Hegel demonstrated, in the Phenomenology of the Spirit, the significance of the religious revival ; art and religion are the means to attain Absolute Knowledge.Vieillard-Baron Jean-Louis. Phénoménologie de la conscience religieuse. In: Dix-huitième Siècle, n°14, 1982. Au tournant des Lumières : 1780-1820. pp. 167-190