Hegel further pronounces, as does Martin Heidegger after him, that the Aufhebung is not only active love but also active being. In other words, the State is the supreme sublimation of the family. This family holds for humanity the approach to absolute knowledge, or, as Derrida says, Savoir absolu . Just as Sa is infinite, the father of the Trinity, asserts Hegel, is infinite. Whereas this spiritual Aufhebung , for Hegel, is always an ascent on a staircase directed upward toward absolute knowledge, Derrida argues against the ineluctability of Sa and, instead, postulates two staircases, one going up and one going down, so that, in the spirit, the father can recover the son unto himself and the son can recover the father.
Absolute knowledge is synonymous with absolute spirit.
In response, Derrida relates, Hegel's history of spirit sews together a primordial family complete with a mother. The woman has been excluded from the system of the family precisely in order to insure the survival of that system for, in Hegel's words, the spirit can only operrate in masculine activity, that is to say, in opposition and mastery. By attempting to annul the female, the Hegelian Aufhebung makes her absolutely indispensable for the suspension of the family. Armstrong Atlantic State University.