From his earliest writings as a student in the Evangelical Stift in Tübingen to the last years of his life as a professor in Berlin, art played a major role in Hegel’s various philosophical formulations. It is important to note, however, that although Hegel remained convinced of the general importance of art for his own philosophical endeavors, the particular details of his interpretation of its significance changed quite markedly over the years as he developed his own unique philosophical position (...) and as his firsthand experience of works of art increased. In this paper I will concentrate on some of Hegel’s earliest efforts toward developing his own philosophical system, and will show how this development is reflected in a fundamental transformation of his interpretation of the significance of art. More specifically, I will establish in what follows that one major consequence of Hegel’s evolving systematic philosophy is an “impoverishment” of the artistic in the sense that art comes to lose a certain fertility which it had had in his earlier views. This impoverishment is in effect the price exacted if art is to assume a place within Hegel’s system, precisely because the role and significance of art now come to be defined by and expressed in terms of its place in that system. Although this paper will be concerned with only the first stages in a process of development which continues all the way up to his Berlin lectures on beautiful art, it will nonetheless become apparent that Hegel’s early understanding of art has to have been radically altered for such a development even to begin. (shrink)

The article examines a number of methodological and conceptual features in the philosophical work of S.L. Rubinstein of the early (Marburg) period. It is assumed that the copies of Rubinstein’s doctoral inaugural dissertation available at the university of Marburg (Germany) and it the private archive of K.A. Abulkhanova represents two parts of one research, which understated expect in it’s first part (the text submitted for defense) an interpretation and criticism of Hegel’s absolute rationalism, and in the second part (...) an exposition of the author’s own concept. It is proved that Rubinstein overcomes the logical limitation the Hegelian philosophical absolutization – the opposition of being and consciousness, the author fuses object and subject in a single being as a domain of accommodation of both, the construction of the internal consistent picture of being as the actual being of a leaving subject. Acknowledgement of Sources. The author is sincerely grateful to the D. Sc. in Philosophy, Professor, Academician of the Russian Academy of Education K.A. Abulkhanova for the materials provided from her personal archive. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Evil in Modern Thought: An Alternative History of PhilosophyPaul S. MiklowitzSusan Neiman. Evil in Modern Thought: An Alternative History of Philosophy. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002. Pp. xii + 358. Cloth, $29.95.Contemporary philosophy in America tends to regard epistemological questions as the most fundamental of the discipline, but Susan Neiman's Evil in Modern Thought sets itself against this assumption in an attempt to sketch "an alternative history of (...) philosophy." "It's possible to begin to worry about the difference between appearance and reality because... a dream is so vivid that you want to grasp one of its objects for a moment or two of sleepy half-consciousness," Neiman writes, but then "you wake up in your bed, slap your face if you have to... " (5). The problem of evil, in stark contrast to such skeptical speculations, is far more urgent and trenchant; it is "the place where philosophy begins, and threatens to stop" (ibid.). Moreover, the problem of evil, far from being merely a theological quandary, actually forms a link between metaphysics and epistemology by starkly posing questions about the intelligibility of the world: Why are things like that? wants the answer Because it's best that way. For the early modern period, these questions centered on the "theodicy" debates focused by the catastrophic Lisbon earthquake of 1755, while for us the holocaust threatens to explode all our hopes and expectations for the possibility of a world that is as it should be. Thus, Lisbon and Auschwitz frame for Neiman the historical topoi that ground discussion of the relation between natural and moral evils, the evolving philosophical understanding of which defines "who we have become in the three centuries that separate us from the early Enlightenment" (10).The problem of theodicy is introduced through the figure of Alfonso X, king of Castille in 1252, and "the first Enlightenment hero" (14), according to Neiman. Having studied astronomy under the guidance of learned Jews from Toledo, Alfonso scandalously remarked "If I had been of God's counsel at the Creation, many things would have been ordered better" (15). Serving as a paradigm of blasphemy for half a millennium, Alfonso's boast also expresses the inevitable dismay that must accompany the delighted wonder at natural order exploited by the argument from design: while Creation is surely miraculous in its manifestation of seemingly intelligent structure, it is just as surely astonishing that so much of that structure seems so wantonly destructive. Can this really be the best of all possible worlds if innocent lives are cut short by cruel diseases or natural disasters while vicious villains prosper into comfortable old age?! Alfonso's remark serves Neiman as a leitmotif around which she orders central figures in the canon of western philosophy into two camps: those who struggled to reconcile natural evil with God's goodness or with reason (Leibniz, Pope, Rousseau, Kant, Hegel and Marx), and those who skeptically condemned reason by appealing to "brute appearances" (Bayle, Voltaire, Hume, Sade and Schopenhauer). Because the very categories of natural and moral evil tend to break down as a result of the development of psychology as a "science of nature" (to the extent that human motives are regarded as natural processes subject to empirical explanation, they cease to manifest a unique ontology), Nietzsche and Freud fall outside the philosophical canon thus construed—although Neiman's discussion of these two thinkers is perhaps the most compelling of the book.No new interpretive ground is broken in the resulting exegesis of western philosophical history, but Neiman's treatment of each of these figures is intelligent and skillful. In discussing Kant, for example, a deep paradox at the center of his moral thought is brilliantly harnessed to the book's argument. Whereas theodicies from Leibniz onward had focused on attempts to show that Providence ultimately guaranteed a connection between virtue and happiness despite obvious evidence to the contrary, Kant took exactly the opposite tack. As Neiman puts it, "Solving the problem of evil is not only impossible but immoral. For knowing the connections between moral and natural evils would undermine the possibility of morality" (69). If we could be sure that good deeds... (shrink)

For over a century, Hegel’s view of war is seen as controversial that results in mutually exclusive interpretations. To reach a proper evaluation of Hegel’s views, it is necessary to consider both Hegel’s initial states of philosophical doctrine about war and peace, and the development of his understanding of war from early works to mature ones. In the first part of the paper, I characterize Kant’s position on war, since it was the starting point for Hegel. Contrary to popular (...) representations about Kant as an exclusive pacifist, the philosopher of Koenigsberg had a philosophical-historical treatment of war, in which the war appeared as something sublime. However, both legal-ethical peace understanding and veto of war from the point of practical reason were not dominant in Kant’s philosophy, subordinating the sublime treatment of war. Kant’s next contemporaries could not already keep this position, emphasizing either one or the other side of war interpretation. Starting from the early writings (the paper “On the Scientific Ways of Treating Natural Law” or manuscripts “System of Ethical Life” and “The German Constitution”), Hegel stresses an ethical aspect of war and its necessity, so that the shield is arranged on the way of systems isolation and individuals atomization, and the unity in its ethical health is saved. Perpetual peace, on the contrary, leads to diseases. The statement about equality of claims and the same truthfulness of warring parties’ rights is the originality of Hegel’s view. It makes absolutely impossible the war evaluation from the point of its justice and injustice. (shrink)

The main thesis of this book is that Wittgenstein’s early philosophy is an exemplification of Newtonian physics, whereas the later philosophy exemplifies contemporary, relativistic physics. The reader may recall Wittgenstein’s insistence, during both major periods of his thought, upon the separation of philosophy from science. However, Bolton’s unstated premise is that Wittgenstein’s thought was unconsciously determined by two different conceptions of physics. Whatever one may think of this, it leaves a question unanswered. Since both periods of Wittgenstein’s thought follow (...) the development of relativistic physics, why was he initially influenced by Newtonian physics or its expression in modern philosophy? Was this a contingent error of the youthful Wittgenstein, or an expression of historical inevitability? We find no discussion of this difficult problem in Bolton’s book. Instead, he claims, and to some extent shows, that Wittgenstein, in the Tractatus, crystallizes the axioms of modern philosophy, which is essentially Newtonian. At the historical level, this thesis is either wrong or uninformative. It is wrong because not all of modern philosophy can be explained on the basis of the peculiarities of modern or Newtonian physics. It is uninformative because to the extent that all modern philosophers took Newtonian physics for granted, the latter cannot account for the sharp differences between, say, John Locke and Hegel. Nevertheless, Bolton provides interesting and plausible reasons for regarding the Tractatus as an expression of that aspect of modern philosophy which may profitably be called "Newtonian." He fails to convince at least one reader that the repudiation of the Tractatus is a repudiation of modern philosophy for anyone other than Wittgenstein and his followers. On the other hand, once we discount, or even disregard, Bolton’s historical thesis, the more traditional virtues of his book come sharply into focus. Having recently reviewed the 686 page commentary by Baker and Hacker on the first third of the Investigations, as well as Wright’s 481 page essay on Wittgenstein’s philosophy of mathematics, the author of this note is in a good position to appreciate the economy and lucidity of Bolton’s summary analysis of the main points in the Tractatus. As an example of my disagreement with Bolton’s interpretation, I begin with a brief citation from p. 86. (shrink)

Hegel's central concept of the spirit evolved in these two works. An 87-page interpretation by Harris precedes the translations.

Hegel’s definition of the state as a common public authority in The German Constitution marks his first thorough attempt to understand the authority of the modern state in terms of the rule of law. Such an understanding of the state constitutes an important advance in Hegel’s political philosophy since, in his early political-theological writings, the legal relation was in essence excluded from the political sphere. Positing a fundamental opposition between legality and authentic ethical life, Hegel interpreted societies in which (...) legal forms become particularly pronounced as societies founded on degenerate political institutions and caught up in an inexorable process of decline. Until Hegel grasped the positive ethical significance of legal authority, something accomplished in The German Constitution, his theory of the state remained largely determined by a Greek-inspired, virtue-based paradigm of political life. Only with the overcoming of this paradigm could he move to a comprehensive analysis of both modern institutional structures and the political theories that attempt to understand and justify them. Hegel’s evolving theory of modern legal form thus provides an important index and measure of his complex stance toward modern political society and of his critical assessment of the self-interpretations of modernity offered by the natural right tradition and the Enlightenment. (shrink)

In 1971, answering a question concerning one of the main motifs of his works, Derrida declared that ‘if there were a definition of différance, it would be precisely the limit, the interruption, the destruction of the Hegelian “relève” [i.e. Aufhebung] wherever it operates’. It is apparent that such an approach to Hegel is indebted to Heidegger's program of a ‘destruction’ (Destruktion) of the history of ontology. But what does Derrida's reading of Hegel owe to Heidegger exactly? In this paper, I (...) investigate this question and the genesis of Derrida's reading of Hegel more generally by looking into the interpretation which can be found in the 1964–65 lectures about Heidegger: The Question of Being and History. In the process of interpreting Heidegger, Derrida produces extensive comments about Hegel which document the early elaboration of his perception of the author of the Phenomenology of Spirit. Here, I focus on Hegel's conception of experience, which Derrida compares to Heidegger's understanding of the historicity of Dasein. As will become clear, however, this question involves the way Derrida presents the relationship between the two thinkers throughout these lectures. Specifically, I show that Derrida significantly bases his account of Heidegger's ‘destruction’ of Hegel's philosophy on the former's interpretation of the latter's concept of experience. By examining such an interpretation, I intend to challenge the way Derrida portrays Hegel and I argue as a result that it is questionable whether Heidegger's departure from Hegel can be taken to be as ‘radical’ as Derrida makes it seem. (shrink)

The article analyzes the reception of Hegel’s philosophy in feminist theory on the example of the concepts of Simone de Beauvoir, Luce Irigaray, and Judith Butler. The first part of the article examines Hegel’s teaching on the role of women in the family, identifies the place of the feminine in Hegel’s system and analyzes the Hegelian interpretation of Sophocle’s “Antigone”. The second part of the article presents an interpretation of Si­mone de Beauvoir. I affirm that the oppositions “woman (...) – man” and “the Other – I” are heirs to the “slave – master” opposition. The third part of the article discusses Irigaray’s in­terpretation of Hegel’s Antigone. It is argued that Antigone in Irigaray’s view goes be­yond the dialectic of slave and master, and therefore becomes a symbol of anti-woman. The fourth part of the article examines the paradox of bodily submission during the transi­tion to the Unhappy Consciousness by Judith Butler. The historical and philosophical study of influence is accompanied by a conceptual analysis of the problems that arise in the inter­pretation of feminist versions of the slave – master dialectic. At the end of the article, I briefly formulate the problems identified during the study and present possible solutions. (shrink)

The best of Hegel's early writings, with an introduction on Hegel's philosophical development.

Interpretation of Śaṅkarācārya's Brahmasūtrabhāṣyam; includes original text.

This collection examines different themes and offers novel interpretations of Hegel's political philosophy. Thus, it sheds new light on what has been perhaps the most controversial area of Hegelian scholarship. It includes eight essays by a group of international scholars at different stages of their career. Its distinctive contribution is that it explores both Hegel's early and mature political philosophy. It includes a paper on Hegel's early essay on "Natural Law", published in two instalments in 1802 and 1803, (...) and the System of Ethical Life, also published in 1802-1803, as well as papers on Hegel's Philosophy of Right (published in 1821). Two papers also discuss "The German Constitution", written between 1798 and 1802. The volume comes as an addition to the current debate that has been occasioned by the bicentenary of Hegel's Philosophy of Right. (shrink)

This book is a translation of a classic work of modern social and political thought. Elements of the Philosophy of Right, Hegel's last major published work, is an attempt to systematize ethical theory, natural right, the philosophy of law, political theory, and the sociology of the modern state into the framework of Hegel's philosophy of history. Hegel's work has been interpreted in radically different ways, influencing many political movements from far right to far left, and is widely perceived as central (...) to the communitarian tradition in modern ethical, social, and political thought. This edition includes extensive editorial material informing the reader of the historical background of Hegel's text, and explaining his allusions to Roman law and other sources, making use of lecture materials which have only recently become available. The new translation is literal, readable, and consistent, and will be informative and scholarly enough to serve the needs of students and specialists alike. (shrink)

Art as a representation of ideal action is presented in five chapters, each devoted to a different art.--A. B.

This chapter contains sections titled: Religion: A Moral‐Metaphysical Interpretation of ‘Positivity’ Love: Outline of an Ethical Relation Law: Death and Absolute Sittlichkeit References Secondary Sources.

Professor Kaminsky’s lucid exposition is, surprisingly, the first attempt in English to deal extensively and critically with Hegel’s views on art, as outlined in his difficult volumes on that subject. Hegel on Art thus performs a needed service for those interested in either the philosophy or the history of the fine arts. Hegel’s idealistic metaphysics was the last European endeavor to construct a universal philosophical system on the traditional pattern, and to modern readers it can easily appear more imposing than (...) useful. But in his examination of art, according to Professor Kaminsky, the German philosopher became “the most empirical of the empiricists,” and his observations can be valuable to us quite independent of our commitment to his metaphysics. Moreover, as Professor Kaminsky shows, Hegel’s metaphysical framework does give him an advantage not available under the rigorous skepticism of today’s positivist or symbolist: he can recognize that art mirrors the world of action, and so can provide it with objective validity. As the author concludes in Hegel’s defense: “It may well be that only art can be used to communicate the important episodes that happen to us or others....Without art, we lose one of our great sources of information as to who we are and what we ought to do.”. (shrink)

Hegel came to maturity as a philosopher during the first years of the nineteenth century, developing through prodigious intellectual struggles a highly original conception of dialectic as a method for rationally comprehending traumatic historical change. At the same time, he continued a process begun earlier, of critical engagement with the Christian gospel and its historical ethos. Hegel spent much of his youth reacting against this drama and its cultural expression. By the time he published his early masterpiece, the _Phenomenology (...) of Spirit_, he had found an ingenious way of reconstructing it in counterpoint with his new dialectical understanding of historical experience. _Dialectic and Gospel in the Development of Hegel's Thinking_ tells the story of this interplay as it develops in Hegel's thinking. It culminates in a fresh interpretation of the _Phenomenology of Spirit_ and a detailed commentary on larger portions of the text relevant to that story. Crites's reading of the masterpiece is contextualized by three substantial chapters detailing the course of Hegel's reflections on Christian themes through the first thirty-five years of his life. These chapters are both biographical and textual, treating not only the philosopher’s personal and intellectual development but also the major cultural influences that informed it. Hegel is seen to have begun as a child of the Enlightenment powerfully, affected by the Romantic reaction to the Enlightenment, who finds his way to his own position as a founding genius of German Idealism and its historical dialectic. His development is thus interpreted as an epitome of a major transformation in European intellectual history. (shrink)

Hegel’s Social Ethics offers a fresh and accessible interpretation of G. W. F. Hegel’s most famous book, the Phenomenology of Spirit. Drawing on important recent work on the social dimensions of Hegel’s theory of knowledge, Molly Farneth shows how his account of how we know rests on his account of how we ought to live. Farneth argues that Hegel views conflict as an unavoidable part of living together, and that his social ethics involves relationships and social practices that allow (...) people to cope with conflict and sustain hope for reconciliation. Communities create, contest, and transform their norms through these relationships and practices, and Hegel’s model for them are often the interactions and rituals of the members of religious communities. The book’s close readings reveal the ethical implications of Hegel’s discussions of slavery, Greek tragedy, early modern culture wars, and confession and forgiveness. The book also illuminates how contemporary democratic thought and practice can benefit from Hegelian insights. Through its sustained engagement with Hegel’s ideas about conflict and reconciliation, Hegel’s Social Ethics makes an important contribution to debates about how to live well with religious and ethical disagreement. (shrink)

This new translation of The Science of Logic (also known as 'Greater Logic') includes the revised Book I (1832), Book II (1813), and Book III (1816). Recent research has given us a detailed picture of the process that led Hegel to his final conception of the System and of the place of the Logic within it. We now understand how and why Hegel distanced himself from Schelling, how radical this break with his early mentor was, and to what extent (...) it entailed a return (but with a difference) to Fichte and Kant. In the introduction to the volume, George di Giovanni presents in synoptic form the results of recent scholarship on the subject, and, while recognizing the fault lines in Hegel's System that allow opposite interpretations, argues that the Logic marks the end of classical metaphysics. The translation is accompanied by a full apparatus of historical and explanatory notes. (shrink)

In his article ‘Art and Time’ Patočka argues that Hegel rightly recognized a fundamental difference between classical and contemporary art. In developing Hegel’s insight he offers a conception of two eras of art, the ‘artistic’ era and the era of ‘aesthetic culture’. Patočka supposes that artworks of both the artistic era and the aesthetic era always open up a certain ‘meaning’ that gives human existence its fundamental points of reference. The status of this world, however, radically changed from one era (...) to the next. The art of the artistic era offered objective and binding meaning, whereas aesthetic art offers personal or individual meaning. The current article points to an important discrepancy in Patočka’s treatment of the relation between the two eras, and presents Patočka’s later reading of Hegel’s notion of the past character of art. From the perspective of this interpretation, art reveals temporality as such, that is, as the ontological basis of the revelation of meaning. The article emphasizes that such an interpretation demonstrates the ontological relevance of the artwork in greater detail. Yet Patočka continued to use the concepts of the artistic era and the aesthetic era, without sufficiently clarifying the relationship between the two eras. Finally, the author argues that the discrepancy in the concept can be resolved with the help of Patočka’s later reflections on the ‘problematic nature’ of meaning. The article argues that in classical art such a nature is concealed, whereas in modern art it is revealed again. The article includes an English translation of Patočka´s ‘Art and Time’. (shrink)

The first publication of seminal early writing by Louis Althusser. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Louis Althusser enjoyed virtually unrivalled status as the foremost living Marxist philosopher. Today, he is remembered as the scourge and severest critic of "humanist" or Hegelian Marxism, as the proponent of rigorously scientific socialism, and as the theorist who posited a sharp rupture—an epistemological break—between the early and the late Marx. This collection of texts from the period 1945-1953 turns these interpretations of Althusser (...) on their head: we discover that there was a "young Althusser" as well as the "mature Althusser" we are already familiar with. In his fascinating Master's thesis, "On Content in the Thought of G.W.F. Hegel" (1947), Althusser developed a position which he was later to attack ferociously: namely, that the revolutionary potential of the Hegelian dialectic could be defended against Hegel's own political conservatism. We see Althusser still wrestling with the spectres of Hegel and of Catholicism in another long text, his letter to Jean Lacroix, and, finally, we see his own "epistemological break" in the piece "On Marxism" from 1953. Other texts included are his critique of Alexander KojÅve (whose interpretation Francis Fukoyama has recently revived) and his attack on the French Church's teachings on women, sex and the family. Widely recognized as an intellectual giant of the late twentieth century, Althusser has left a towering legacy. This collection not only gives a unique insight into the formation of such a personality, but will also restore the "unknown Althusser" to the centre of the history of Marxism and of philosophy since the Second World War. (shrink)

The appearance of this translation is a major event in English-language Hegel studies, for it is more than simply a replacement for Wallace's translation cum paraphrase. Hegel's Prefaces to each of the three editions of the Enzyklopädie are translated for the first time into English. There is a very detailed Introduction translating Hegel's German, which serves not only as a guide to the translator's usage but also to Hegel's. Also included are a detailed bilingual annotated glossary, very extensive bibliographic and (...) interpretive notes to Hegel's text, an Index of References for works cited in the notes, a select Bibliography of recent works on Hegel's logic, and a detailed Index. The translation is guided by the principle that rendering Hegel’s logical thought clearly and consistently requires rendering his technical terms logically.... This ought immediately to become the standard translation of this important work. --Kenneth R. Westphal, in _Review of Metaphysics_. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:148 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 28:1 JANUARY 199o David D. Roberts. BenedettoCroceand the Usesof Historicism. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, a987. Pp. xii + 449- NP. This book is a remarkably good survey of Croce's enormous output on the general topics of philosophy, politics, and history. Roberts shows an outstanding mastery not only of Croce's voluminous writings, but of the whole secondary literature about (...) him since the first rebellion of his Italian "followers" in the early years of this century. Roberts's aim is to restore Croce to his proper place in the continuing dialogues and debates about historicism and hermeneutics. So far as one writer can achieve such a goal with one book, he has achieved it; if there are reasons to fear (nevertheless) that his achievement may not have the full effect that he hopes for, they are rooted in Croce's own personality and background, not in any failure on the part of Roberts. "[I]f we are to grasp the dominant concerns of Croce's intellectual life, we must approach him primarily as a Western intellectual who was seeking to address the central challenges facing our culture, not confine him to... his particular Italian, or Neapolitan context.... [O]n the deepest level he would have faced the same challenges had he been reared in The Hague or Philadelphia" (24). The final rhetorical flourish here is one of Roberts's rare tumbles into outright absurdity, for what is (perhaps) true in 1987 was not true in 1887. So we should be glad that the Italian background is never really lost sight of. Roberts's treatment of Croce's intellectual formation is rather impressionistic, but we do always have a vivid image of the mature Don Benedetto, the bourgeois Neapolitan worthy who was made a Senator of the Realm in 191o (a biographical fact that is not mentioned). The one serious fault in Roberts's account of Croce's formation--which is excellent on the influence of Vico and Marx--is his failure to take a properly European view of Hegel. He remains a prisoner of Croce's critique of Hegel, so that he is never able to see clearly how deeply Hegelian Croce was. He sees only the differences, and, as far as "historicism" is concerned, they are largely differences from a straw man. Having said that, almost nothing remains but praise. Croce maintained that philosophy was only the tool-bag of the historian. Roberts, who is an intellectual historian rather than a philosopher, takes Croce at his word, with the results that his book is the first (in English at least) to present Croce's thought in the way that Croce himself saw it. He gives us an insightful review of the "philosophy of the spirit" in about sixty pages, including the development of the concept of"utility" into "vitality" in Croce's last years. Then he embarks on a study of how Croce used his philosophical instruments in the theory and practice of historical and political interpretation. The theory of "absolute historicism" (and of how it can be "absolutely" true) is followed by "the religion of history." This was a kind of historicized Buddhism, in my view, until Croce startled everyone, in a942, by announcing that "we cannot but call ourselves Christians"; but it is only the comparison of Croce's historicism with Buddhism that enables us to see it as a "religion" at all. Roberts does not say this, but he does show clearly how far removed from any faith-religion Croce was. After this comes a long chapter on "Historicist Politics." I think this is the best thing in the book, because Roberts not only clearly displays the near-bankruptcy of Croce's BOOK REVIEWS ~49 actual politics as President of the Italian Liberal Party from 1944 to i947, but demonstrates through a study of Piero Gobetti that neither Croce's own conservatism nor his doctrinal rigidity was a necessary corollary of "absolute historicism" in politics. As the main intellectual beacon of opposition to Fascism during its twenty years of power, Croce enjoyed enormous prestige in 1944; but as Don Benedetto, with his great family estates... (shrink)

During the early 19th century, a peculiarly systematic way of organizing books emerged in Germany. This systematization, which purported to be a rational organization of subject matter, was an outgrowth of the philosophy of Hegel. This article attempts to outline Hegel's organizational practice. It argues that Hegel's encyclopedia was a reaction against the Enlightenment encyclopedia, and that it attempted to restore the systematic mindset of pre-modern reference books. Yet it did this, not in a straightforward fashion, but by developing (...) a method for organizing material that both stresses the interconnectedness of knowledge and promises to be highly scalable. In its attempt to trace the Hegelian organizational method, this article revisits and calls attention to a forgotten work in Hegel scholarship by Michael John Petry, who was the first writer to seriously stress the importance of classification in Hegel's work. This article is an attempt to demonstrate that Hegelianism and information organization can be brought into fruitful and mutually beneficial dialogue. (shrink)

This books contains Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel's preface to the Phenomenology of Spirit, along with his essay, "Who Thinks Abstractly?," translated by Walter Kaufmann, along with Kaufmann's commentary. It was re-issued by the University of Notre Dame Press in 1977. Rear cover blurb: "[Kaufmann's] lengthy commentary is a minor masterpiece of concise and erudite interpretation. This is a welcome departure from the lazy habit of pretending that Hegel was an obscure pedant who left some quite readable lectures on the philosophy (...) of history....To grasp what Hegel was really trying to do, one has to confront his metaphysics, and thanks to Kaufmann this can now be done even by the philosophical novice." - George Lichtheim in New York Review of Books. (shrink)

This essay traces Hegel's conceptualisation of “the spirit and the letter”, from the period of his early theological writings to that of the Science of Logic, with particular reference to his correspondence. This dialectic, for Hegel, concerns the realisation of the truth or “spirit” of something from the specificity and fixity of its particular details – its “letter”. It also concerns, then, the freedom to interpret the spirit of something in spite of the apparent authority of any supposed original (...) meanings or authorial intentions. We find him using the phrase in a variety of contexts, with reference to politics, Biblical hermeneutics, textual criticism, the history of philosophy and education. While originally derived from St Paul's dictum – “the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life” (2 Cor 3:6) – Hegel's early invocations of “the spirit and the letter” are inspired by Fichte, who sought to distinguish the spirit from the letter of Kant's philosophy. However, while Fichte conceives of the “spirit” as an “aesthetic sense” with which to take creative liberties with the letter, the later Hegel finds that it is only by tarrying with the contradictions of the dead letter that the spirit might be brought to life. (shrink)

The fundamental aim of this study will be to offer a precise account of the meaning of Hegel's concept of recognition as it is found in the early Jena-Schriften and the Phenomenology of Spirit . However, in locating the origins of the concept in Greek tragedy, we will also be led beyond the meaning of the concept to its significance. Its significance is established most clearly insofar as the concept can be used to form the basis of an overall (...) interpretation of the PhG as resembling a tragedy. The contemporary influence and relevance of the concept is presented in the Introduction. ;Part I traces the emergence of the concept of recognition out of the concept of love in the Frankfurt-Schriften; it then treats the subsequent development of the concept in the early systematic efforts of the Jena era. Part II focuses upon the distinctive and detailed treatment of the concept as it is portrayed in the PhG. Part III locates the origins of Hegel's concept in Greek tragedy, i.e., tragic recognition, and moves on to consider recognition within the structure of the wholes in the PhG and Greek tragedy. ;The concept of recognition has been seen as Hegel's attempt to come to terms with the individual's lack of integration in modern society. It is employed as a critique of social contract theory in the sense that recognition demands more from individuals in a society than the "merely external bonding" of a contract. The self-knowledge sense of recognition, as opposed to the social and interpersonal senses, has not been given sufficient attention. This can be explained somewhat by the fact that this sense is not featured in the early Jena-Schriften. The relation between knowledge and recognition becomes a pressing issue in the PhG. The self-knowledge sense does not supplant the other senses; rather, it supplements them and thus enriches the concept. The self-knowledge sense of recognition, and even the relation between the different senses is best explicated by reference to tragic recognition. (shrink)

In this review, Hegel responds to criticisms leveled against his philosophy by the anonymous author of Ueber die Hegelsche Lehre, oder: absolutes Wissen und moderner Pantheismus (1829). Frustrated by his interlocutor’s apparent inability to coherently interpret his work, Hegel scathingly attempts to discredit the character of the text in focus and its author’s critical capacity. He does so by showcasing examples of misrepresentation and misunderstanding in the author’s writing. Hegel contests the increasingly common charge of “pantheism” being leveled against him (...) at that time, wielded here by the anonymous author in a fairly unoriginal comparison between Hegel’s “doctrine” and Spinoza’s system. This review gives insight into the character of early theological responses to Hegel, and highlights Hegel’s polemical tendencies. (shrink)

In a sense it would be inappropriate to speak of “Hegel’s system of philosophy,” because Hegel thought that in the strict sense there is only one system of philosophy evolving in the Western world. In Hegel’s view, although at times philosophy’s history seems to be a chaotic series of crisscrossing interpretations of meanings and values, with no consensus, there has been a teleological development and consistent progress in philosophy and philosophizing from the beginning; Hegel held that his own version of (...) “German idealism” was simply bringing to final expression the latest refinements of an ongoing, perennial system. If we take Hegel at his word, then one of the best entries into his system would be through the history of philosophy, showing how systems and schools of thought prior to Hegel led up to his system. The most important currents to focus on, however, would be in modern philosophy, in which especially intensive changes led ultimately to German idealism and Hegel’s immediate predecessors. Fortunately, Hegel lectured extensively on the history of modern philosophy and structured his lectures in such a way as to throw light on the status of the “one system” of Western philosophy at the time — the status to which Hegel felt he had been contributing and was continuing to contribute. These lectures are of interest, first of all, as a systematic chronicle of philosophical positions in the heyday of modern philosophy, from Bacon to Hegel. Second, they are interesting because Hegel’s critical comments on his predecessors clarify his own positions: for example, the dialectic method and the importance of triplicity, the relationship of philosophy to the scientific method, the necessity for avoidance of the extremes of empiricism and of idealism, the subject/object problematic, the “identity” of rationality and reality, and the technical meaning in Hegel’s philosophy of “absolute,” “infinity,” and the “idea.”. (shrink)

This translation of The Science of Logic (also known as 'Greater Logic') includes the revised Book I (1832), Book II (1813) and Book III (1816). Recent research has given us a detailed picture of the process that led Hegel to his final conception of the System and of the place of the Logic within it. We now understand how and why Hegel distanced himself from Schelling, how radical this break with his early mentor was, and to what extent it (...) entailed a return (but with a difference) to Fichte and Kant. In the introduction to the volume, George Di Giovanni presents in synoptic form the results of recent scholarship on the subject, and, while recognizing the fault lines in Hegel's System that allow opposite interpretations, argues that the Logic marks the end of classical metaphysics. The translation is accompanied by a full apparatus of historical and explanatory notes. (shrink)

In 1828, G. W. F. Hegel published a critical review of Johann Georg Hamann, a retrospective of the life and works of one of Germany’s most enigmatic and challenging thinkers and writers. While Hegel’s review had enjoyed a central place in Hamann studies since its appearance, Hegel on Hamann is the first English translation of the important work. Philosophers, theologians, and literary critics welcome Anderson’s stunning translation since Hamann is gaining renewed attention, not only as a key figure of German (...) intellectual history, but also as an early forerunner of postmodern thought. Relationships between Enlightenment, Counter Enlightenment, and Idealism come to the fore as Hegel reflects on Hamann’s critiques of his contemporaries Immanuel Kant, Moses Mendelssohn, J. G. Herder, and F. H. Jacobi. Hegel on Hamann also includes an introduction to Hegel’s review by Anderson, as well as an essay on the role of friendship in Hamann’s life, in Hegel’s thought, and in German intellectual culture more broadly. Rounding out the volume are its extensive annotations and bibliography, which facilitate further study of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century philosophy in English and German. This book is essential both for readers of Hegel or Hamann and for those interested in the history of German thought, the philosophy of religion, language and hermeneutics, or friendship as a philosophical category. (shrink)

The first translation into English and the first detailed interpretation of Hegel’s System der Sittlichkeit and of Philosophie des Geistes, the two earliest surviving versions of Hegel’s social theory. Hegel’s central concept of the spirit evolved in these two works. An 87-page interpretation by Harris precedes the translations.

The first translation into English and the first detailed interpretation of Hegel’s System der Sittlichkeit and of Philosophie des Geistes, the two earliest surviving versions of Hegel’s social theory. Hegel’s central concept of the spirit evolved in these two works. An 87-page interpretation by Harris precedes the translations.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Dialectic and Gospel in the Development of Hegel’s Thinking by Stephen CritesLawrence S. StepelevichStephen Crites. Dialectic and Gospel in the Development of Hegel’s Thinking. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998. Pp. xvii + 572. Cloth, $65.00Unlike either Wittgenstein or Heidegger, or his contemporary, Schelling, there is really no “Early” or “Later” Hegel. The fundamentals of his system were, if not always fully articulated, nevertheless present from (...) the very beginning of his career. There is, in Hegel, a remarkable consistency in the development of his thought, in which the elements that comprised his final system can be detected in his earliest efforts—and it is only in this sense that one can speak of an “Early” or a “Later” Hegel. That his final expression was indeed the result of an effort, a struggle to fuse and clarify seemingly disparate elements, is the thesis of Professor Crites. In this case, the specific disparate elements that are considered are those which confronted Hegel from his earliest days as a student of theology, those elements expressed in the “Christian Drama.” Crites sets out the eight revered acts of this drama: the creation, the fall, God’s covenant with Israel, the incarnation, the death and resurrection of Christ, the Holy Spirit, the mission of the Church, and the last judgment. It is his contention that Hegel “critically engaged the claims of this mythos and the social practices associated with it.” And so, the essence of Crites’s well-written and well-researched study is to set out how this drama served as a “template that affected the way he framed other topics in the ever-widening range of his philosophical inquiry.” It is to his credit that Crites does not consider his own explication of Hegel’s preoccupation with the gospels as some sort of a “secret” key that could unlock the full meaning of Hegel’s philosophy, but nevertheless, as he rightly stresses, this preoccupation cannot be ignored—for it ultimately exercised a crucial role in the formation of that which is now taken as Hegel’s mature thought.Unlike most studies of Hegel’s development—and there are more than a few—Crites avoids taking a retrospective posture, a concluding a priori stance which would allow him to point out where and why this or that particular element was rejected or retained by Hegel, His method is historical, intent upon following Hegel’s own sometimes tortured development, until, finally in this course, we reach a point where we suddenly see that Hegel “shows clear signs of becoming what we can only call a Hegelian—or better still, he shows signs of being Hegel!”The source of this inner development begins, and is traced from, Hegel’s initial appearance as “The Model Pupil of Stuttgart” to that moment in when he stands revealed as embodying that Absolute Knowledge which concludes the Phenomenology. This path from Stuttgart to Jena, which Hegel himself might have had in mind when he spoke of the philosophical “highway of despair” is detailed by Crites with a sure hand. Every stumbling block is noted, and every new resolution ıs marked, from those first essays composed during the bitter days as Hauslehrer, through the steady advances [End Page 540] of “the Jena ‘Philosophy’ ” until the passage completes itself in the Phenomenology and its termination in the “Recollection and the Golgotha of Absolute Spirit.”More than half of Crites’ extensive study is devoted to explicating how the subject of religion is dealtwith in the course of the Phenomenology. In this survey of Hegel’s most well-known work, its fundamental leitmotif emerges clearly into focus: the identification of the “portentous power of the negative” with the Death of God. This death, which is philosophically reflected in dialectical negativity, is the central moment of the gospel drama. In this act, Absolute Spirit must itself suffer and die, for “Not only the Christian God incarnate, but the absolute spirit suffers, suffers its Golgotha and dies.” It is only from this sacrifice that new life can arise—for out of it comes “the resurrection of a new human-divine totality.” What Hegel has retained of the gospel... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Hegel’s Ethics of Recognition by Robert R. WilliamsLawrence S. StepelevichRobert R. Williams. Hegel’s Ethics of Recognition. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1998. Pp. xviii +433. Cloth, $60.00.The eminent Hegel scholar, Vittorio Hoesle, perceived the major weakness of Hegel’s philosophy in its seeming failure to adequately deal with the issue of interpersonal relations. Hardly a new objection, as Hoesle’s critique has a lineage that reaches at least as (...) far back as Schleiermacher. Against this thesis, Robert Williams had earlier developed a counter-argument which he presented in his work, Recognition: Fichte and Hegel on the Other (1992). In this foundational work, Williams drew out and clarified Hegel’s concept of recognition from its inchoate source in Fichte; and by so doing defended “Hegel against charges that his thought violates intersubjectivity and difference by reducing the other to the same.”(1) In the present work, the conceptual and textual grounds established by Williams in his first work on the topic allow for a more extensive extrapolation of Hegel’s doctrine, and argues that “The story of recognition is a story about Fichte and Hegel. Fichte introduced the concept but did not make it the basis of either his ethics or his politics. Hegel appropriated and transformed the concept of recognition and regarded it as the fundamental intersubjective structure of ethical life.” (26)After a brief introductory critical survey of some of the more or less misleading contemporary views of both Hegelians and non-Hegelians regarding Hegel’s concept of interpersonal recognition, Williams proceeds to present its historical genesis, of how it emerged from its early and unfocused appearances in the philosophies of Fichte and Schelling. Williams then traces the further development and elaboration of this concept as it gains expression in the course of Hegel’s own ethical theory, not only as it is found in such major works as the Phenomenology of Mind and The Philosophy of Spirit, but also as it appears in his earlier and lesser known Jena Manuscripts of 1805. After this preliminary doctrinal and historical introduction, Williams turns to the most substantial section of his study, that work of Hegel’s in which the concept of recognition would be expected to and does indeed play its most evident ethical role: The Philosophy of Right.Almost every category within The Philosophy of Right is examined not only for the appearance of the concept, but for the defining role which it plays in the construction of that category. Such an examination is necessary for Williams, since “Reciprocal recognition in its various determinate types and instances is the general structure of ethical life and the embodiment of social reason that underlies and supports the concepts of law and state.” (364) Among the categories considered, categories that Williams discusses within the context of contemporary issues and each of which is taken up in a separate chapter of his work, are Family, Crime and Punishment, Poverty, and the State. In every instance considered he argues that an understanding of the defining role of recognition is a necessary prerequisite not only for a clear and correct comprehension [End Page 174] of Hegel’s ethical theory but of all ethical theory. Certainly, after this scholarly tour de force Hegel’s concept of recognition will have to be taken into account in any credible discussion of his ethical theory. In a final chapter Williams turns to some contemporary ethical theorists who have not taken that concept into consideration, or if they have, have either misunderstood or have rejected it. For Williams, such thinkers as Kojeve, Sartre, Deleuze, Derrida and Levinas, in their misunderstanding or rejection of the ethically mediating concept of recognition, have all contributed toward the “disrupted and fragmented cultural situation at the end of the twentieth century.” (412)In sum, Williams’ presentation and support of Hegel’s ethical employment of the concept of intersubjective recognition cannot but encourage theorists to reconsider the subject, and to see in it not only a conceptual tool which can serve to lucidly contextualize Hegel’s ethical theory into the matrix of his total philosophical system, but also as a needed ethical concept able to transcend both... (shrink)

Hegel's System of Ethical Life An Interpretation by H. S. Harris I. THE CHARACTER OF THE MANUSCRIPT. The untitled manuscript among Hegel's Jena papers, ...

The article is aimed at comprehending the perception of J. Wahl’s philosophy in Russia. The central role is assigned to the notion of “unhappy consciousness” in Hegel’s “The Phenomenology of Spirit” and to the interpretation of this notion in J. Wahl’s philosophy. The analysis of Russian–language studies dealing with his philosophy allows to outline two primary strands of engagement with it: within the framework of “French Neo–Hegelianism”, and within the framework of existentialism. Th e need to renounce this established (...) characteristic of his philosophy is shown. Two arguments are stated in favour of this, conceptual and substantial. As for the former, the restriction of J. Wahl’s philosophy to the two aforementioned frameworks narrows the real horizons of his research. For the latter, the “unhappy consciousness” in J. Wahl’s philosophy besides the tragic–religious interpretation of Hegel’s ideas also contains pluralistic criticism of Hegel’s “monism” as a part of J. Wahl’s own philosophical project of “metaphysical empiricism”. It is argued that treating the entire corpus of J. Wahl’s writings will allow for a more thorough insight into the history of 20th century French philosophy, in particular “French Neo–Hegelianism” and the Franco-German debates concerning phenomenology and existentialism. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Cognition: An Introduction to Hegel's Phenomenology of SpiritJohn RussonTom Rockmore. Cognition: An Introduction to Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997. Pp vii + 247. Cloth, $40.00.Rockmore's book is an argument that Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit is a rigorous and systematic argument about epistemology (2) and it is a commentary designed to introduce students to the details of Hegel's text (1). The epistemological thesis is (...) stated most concisely in Chapter 9. Chapters 1 through 8 comment on the Phenomenology at something close to a paragraph-by-paragraph level, (in the form of Findlay's appendix to the Miller translation of the Phenomenology).Rockmore's thesis is that Hegel's epistemology is an "anti-foundationalism without [End Page 131] scepticism" (215), or a "tertiary empiricism," (197): following Kant, Hegel holds that all knowledge begins with, but does not arise from, experience, but, against Kant, Hegel maintains that knowledge does not relate to anything beyond experience, but is itself the ultimate or absolute object (3). The "Consciousness" section of the Phenomenology establishes this basic position in three stages: "Sense-Certainty" refutes sense-data empiricism; "Perception" shows that knowing what an object is requires the mind's mediation; "Understanding" shows that no successful theory of the unity of the cognitive object can be accomplished in an epistemology that maintains the independence of the object of cognition, (a "thing-in-itself"), and that epistemology must thus shift its focus from object to subject. The "Self-Consciousness" chapter demonstrates that the subject of knowledge must be self-conscious and free, and therefore social and historical. Hegel's great contribution to epistemology is thus to replace the "minimalist" subject of Early Modern epistemology with the "thick" subjectivity of "social human being" (4, 201, 208). The analysis of this "thick" subject is carried out through the "Reason" chapter, (which shows that abstract reason cannot account for the whole of the human subject), and especially the "Spirit" chapter, (though this latter is "perhaps also the most defective part of the Phenomenology" [204]). The "Religion" chapter shows human religious history to be faulty epistemology, that is, an attempt to know that fails because of religion's non-conceptual formulation of its own significance. "Absolute Knowing" rectifies this problem by putting religion's (Christianity's) own ultimate truth—that God is Spirit—into conceptual form in the recognition that human social experience is the absolute. While Rockmore's overall thesis is reasonable, there is much to argue with in the specifics.Kant's philosophy is indisputably a central concern in the Phenomenology, but Rockmore sees Kant in every central move of the book. In his treatment of the "Introduction" and "Consciousness" this is more misleading than helpful (37-8). In discussing the "Introduction," Rockmore helpfully shows that consciousness is a self-comparison, but is weak in discussing the "in-itself." The discussion of "Consciousness" is likewise weak in its treatment of textual specifics, but does assert a reasonable interpretation of this section as a refutation of immediate knowledge that demonstrates the problems of reconciling unity and diversity in objects of experience, and the need for a science of subjectivity.Rockmore portrays the "Independence and Dependence of Self-Consciousness" as establishing that freedom is to be found in equal recognition, a social situation that is not yet established (70-2). "The Freedom of Self-Consciousness" shows the inadequacy of abstract, individualistic conceptions of freedom (76, 202). Here again, Rockmore's claims are more overlain on the text than derived from it. The treatment of the "Freedom of Self-Consciousness" is disappointing in failing to recognize a systematic character to Hegel's study. Indeed, while claiming to defend Hegel against charges of non-rigorous, non-systematic idiosyncracy (195), Rockmore is surprisingly inattentive to the systematic shape of Hegel's argument.In discussing "Reason," Rockmore again treats Kant as Hegel's major antagonist. His introduction to the "Reason" chapter is helpful, but his treatment of "Observing Reason" suffers from lack of attention to Schelling's philosophy of nature, and lack of historical precision in the discussion of Early Modern science and philosophy. The [End Page 132] discussions of the later... (shrink)

This work exposes the development of Hegel’s political theory from its origins in Hegel’s reading of Sir James Stewart and the composition of the early theological writings, through the Philosophy of Right. Its principle value lies in showing how careful use may be made of Hegel’s earlier writings in interpreting his mature political philosophy. Avineri describes Hegel’s early dissatisfaction with the understanding of the state as an instrument for the protection of private property, and his attempts to develop (...) a concept of ethical community. Developments of the latter notion are seen in the anti-nationalism of The German Constitution, as well as in the theories of property, class, and representation contained therein. Avineri shows the inappropriateness of ascribing to Hegel a political romanticism, regarding either Prussia or Classical Greece. And in his comments on the System der Sittlicheit [[sic]] and the Realphilosophie, he offers detailed and valuable commentary on Hegel’s early concept of labor. He demonstrates here Hegel’s sensitivity to the complex economic reality of modern society, and shows the early Hegel’s ability to describe labor, class divisions, commodity production, money, and alienation in ways remarkably akin to Marx. Here too Hegel’s notion of the state as that which overcomes the private character of production in civil society and constitutes society as an ethical community is seen. (shrink)

The present study aims at giving factual support to the thesis that the Parmenides is serious in intention, rigorous in logical demonstration, and stylistically meticulous in its original composition. While this consideration may be tedious, still it is useful. Against a past history which has claimed to find the tone hilarious, the logic fallacious, the work inauthentic, the text in need of bracketing by divination, the whole incoherent— against these eccentricities a certain firm sobriety seems called for. I hope that (...) my conclusions find support and persist through fluctuations of philosophic and philological styles.The main difficulty with my thesis is that the text as we now have it (in Burnet's and Dies' editions) shows exceptions to every rule that might apply to style and even to logical structure. Thus it is almost but not quite uniformly true that each theorem opens with a theorem statement; that each is marked by a "questioning" response; that each deduction is valid when formalized in propositional calculus; and so on. Are the exceptions the result of careless composition; are they deliberate warnings not to take the proofs too seriously; or are they the result of errors in transmission? One way to test this is to reconstruct early versions of the text: if these show more logical rigor than the later versions the notion of a wholly valid original is supported; if they do not, the result may point toward the need for a less serious interpretation. A second thing to look for is the possibility that, here and there, parts of a coherent original text are uniquely conserved in sources other than the principal mss, B,T, and W. This assumes, of course, that the "original" text in question is the one with the best logical form, and that assumption seems justified. As a matter of fact, later copyings almost universally show deterioration, not improvement in style and logic.My textual findings are more compatible with some lines of interpretation than with others. Thus I offer some reasons for not accepting treatments of the work as a joke, mystical revelation, or abrupt metaphysical revision. The structure of the dialogue is best explained, I think, by reading it as an indirect proof that some non-Platonic interpretations of the theory of forms are unsatisfactory. In particular, these are the Megarian version (represented in the first part of the dialogue by Zeno, in the second by the First Hypothesis), and the Anaxagorean version put forward by Eudoxus (represented in the first part by Cephalus and his friends from Clazomenae, in the second by the Second Hypothesis). At the same time, the dialogue shows the need for a philosophic method other than the "hypothetical— deductive" way of dianoia; presumably this other method is the "dialectic" discussed in Republic VII. It also follows that any interpretation of the Phaedo which falls into either the Eudoxian or Megarian difficulties was not— at least at the date of the Parmenides—Plato's intended reading.Findings concerning the relations and reliability of the manuscripts of this dialogue also apply to the texts of the other Platonic dialogues which these mss contain.Further, the Parmenides is such an important work both historically and intrinsically that any insight which textual study can bring to its interpretation is a contribution to Western philosophy. (shrink)

This work exposes the development of Hegel’s political theory from its origins in Hegel’s reading of Sir James Stewart and the composition of the early theological writings, through the Philosophy of Right. Its principle value lies in showing how careful use may be made of Hegel’s earlier writings in interpreting his mature political philosophy. Avineri describes Hegel’s early dissatisfaction with the understanding of the state as an instrument for the protection of private property, and his attempts to develop (...) a concept of ethical community. Developments of the latter notion are seen in the anti-nationalism of The German Constitution, as well as in the theories of property, class, and representation contained therein. Avineri shows the inappropriateness of ascribing to Hegel a political romanticism, regarding either Prussia or Classical Greece. And in his comments on the System der Sittlicheit [[sic]] and the Realphilosophie, he offers detailed and valuable commentary on Hegel’s early concept of labor. He demonstrates here Hegel’s sensitivity to the complex economic reality of modern society, and shows the early Hegel’s ability to describe labor, class divisions, commodity production, money, and alienation in ways remarkably akin to Marx. Here too Hegel’s notion of the state as that which overcomes the private character of production in civil society and constitutes society as an ethical community is seen. (shrink)

The article reflects on Heidegger’s “metaphysical” interpretation of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit. This interpretation is driven by two theses Heidegger holds: (1) that the Phenomenology is a necessary part of Hegel’s “system of science” and (2) that the Phenomenology is metaphysics. These two theses contrast with Houlgate’s “epistemological” interpretation, which claims that the Phenomenology is not a necessary part of Hegel’s system of science and that it is not metaphysics. The article shows that while Heidegger has an (...) argument that establishes, contra Houlgate, that the Phenomenology is metaphysics, this very argument has consequences that undermine Heidegger’s thesis that the Phenomenology is a necessary part of Hegel’s system of science. (shrink)