Book Description
This brilliant study of the stages in the mind's necessary progress from immediate sense-consciousness to the position of a scientific philosophy includes an introductory essay and a paragraph-by-paragraph analysis of the text to help the reader understand this most difficult and most
influential of Hegel's works.
Customer Reviews:
A Translation which could use more care.......2007-09-24
Unfortunately there is an oft repeated caution when approaching any translated text, but I might argue it is a particularly pernicious problem in the case of Hegel. Much of what Hegel is attempting to accomplish in this piece is break down Kantian categories and give them new dimensionality. In the German, for instance, Hegel uses the word "sein" (being) in various constructions brilliantly woven together to help the reader pick at the different linguistic formulations of what it means "to be". Unfortunately, Miller has given no clues to the reader to get to Hegel's meaning in the German, and instead often come across as bizarre instead of piercing.
Hegeling it up.......2007-09-11
Hegel starts with the scepticism of Hume and the phenomenology of Kant's critique, and then claims that neither went far enough with their probings into knowledge and truth.
A dubious landmark.......2007-09-06
Before you get overawed by his reputation, its worth remembering that a healthy portion of philosophers, especially in the English speaking world, think that Hegel wrote a lot of nonsense, and its historical influence, in my opinion, is not overwhelmingly positive. I've been suspicious of it ever sense I wrote what I thought was a fairly dubious paper on its first section and yet still got an A on it. A lot of the prose reads like some sort of Burroughs-esque prank. Most contemporary analytic philosophy thinks early philosophers were too ambitious in gaining elaborate knowledge through reason alone, but Hegel seems to think they basically weren't ambitious enough. Essentially, if you channeled the rationalists through a megalomaniac, you might get something like this.
Take my pulse, please.......2007-03-15
Phenomenology of Spirit is not a book to be tossed aside lightly; it should be hurled with great force.
Utterly worthless drivel.
Written first but should maybe be read last.......2006-07-04
Okay, so it isn't literally the first thing Hegel wrote, but it is indisputably the work of the young Hegel. I've read this book through twice and have given detailed readings of it in papers, etc. But if I had to do it over again, I would recommend starting with the "mature" Hegel of the encyclopedia - this is a three volume set: the Encyclopedia Logic, i.e. "the little logic", the philosophy of nature, and the philosophy of spirit/mind/geist (not to be confused with the phenomenology). Why start there? For one thing Hegel goes to great lengths to define his method, the dialectic, to situate his work in the history of thought, and to spell it all out in a consistent format. Basically these books resemble legal constitutional writings, with addenda that, in an engaging way, critique "ordinary" thinking on the most basic and enduringly relevant matters. But if you have to start here, savor the preface, it's slow going after that. Also you might want to consider reading Sophocles' Antigone and Rameau's Nephew by Diderot, I was pleasantly surprised the first time I read this by the extent to which he close reads these texts. Someone else mentions Plato's Parminedes, but that is really more relevant to the Logic than to this.
Book Description
This is a major and comprehensive study of the philosophy of Hegel, his place in the history of ideas, and his continuing relevance and importance. Professor Taylor relates Hegel to the earlier history of philosophy and, more particularly, to the central intellectual and spiritual issues of his own time. He engages with Hegel sympathetically, on Hegel's own terms and, as the subject demands, in detail. This important book is now reissued with a fresh new cover.
Customer Reviews:
Making the case for Hegel.......2004-04-17
Since I'm not half through, I wouldn't be reviewing this if anyone else had stepped up. I'm enjoying the book. Hegel's been a sore spot ever since the seminar on the "Phenomenology of Spirit" where I felt like a complete illiterate trying to read him (in translation no less).
Since Hegel's practically the definition of "pseudo-philosophy" in the English-speaking world, it's fascinating to read this treatment by a sensible English (?) philosopher. Taylor does a great job in the 1st chapter setting up Hegel's problematic, with a survey of German romanticism and its issues. Those issues are in large part still with us today, so that Hegel's working on problems that should be of interest to us.
But are those problems solvable? Can we take seriously someone who argues that "the rational is real, and the real is rational"? Taylor's carefully developing and qualifying Hegel's claims of universal rationality and trying to see his case for them.
Even if you hate Hegel, or think you do, the great anti-Hegelian Bertrand Russell said that the 1st step to evaluating a philosophy is to engage with it as sympathetically as possible (in a bit of a Hegelian moment himself as I recall: sympathy-antipathy-evaluation). This book may be your best shot in English.
Nietzsche argued that (1) the world is meaningless and "irrational," and that (2) humans cannot accept (1). If he's right, then something like Hegel's system may be the necessary consequence.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent introduction to Hegel.......2007-04-18
My kid nicked it from my library and learned much at about the age of 14. He said subsequent, "Dad is engaged in a Fight to da Death for Pure Recognition".
apostrophes.......2006-07-27
To the previous reviewer:
The possessive form of it is its -- it's means it is.
A Brief Note on Tactics.......2006-07-24
This book, an 'Introduction to the Reading of Hegel', is a collection of transcripts and notes collected and edited by Raymond Queneau, that is the true beginning of the contemporary 'End of History' debate. But can there ever be a final reconciliation between the innumerable factions of human history? "...[H]e [i.e., Hegel] definitely reconciles himself with all that is and has been, by declaring that there will never more be anything new on earth. ('Introduction', p 168.)" Hegel, according to Kojeve, thought that History had come to an end; but the question of course is - exactly what does history 'think' - i.e., do? And that boils down to the question: what exactly is humanity doing? There is a not minor problem with making predictions in public that I would like to mention in this short note; these predictions become but another factor in human interactions. Kojeve, of course, is quite well aware of this; he regarded his 'philosophy' as little more than propaganda for the Hegelian position. This is no modesty, btw, in our posthistoire one can only make propaganda. (Briefly, according to Kojeve, 'History' properly understood ended with Hegel. We live today in a post-history that is nothing but the actualization of Hegelian philosophy throughout the World. When this actualization is complete the Universal Homogenous State then rises.) Thus Kojeve regards (correctly, given his premises) all 'philosophy' today as propaganda. But he has, in my humble opinion. spoken too soon.
Stanley Rosen, a student of Kojeve, alludes to this possibility in the title essay of 'Hermeneutics as Politics': "Had he remained silent, he could never have been refuted." How does one end History, possess the final knowledge - and then change ones mind? (On Kojeve's changing his mind see, for instance, the enigmatic 'Note to the Second Edition' in the 'Introduction to the Reading of Hegel'.) But there is more to the problem than that. By revealing the 'necessities' of History long before its final consummation (i.e., the rise of the UHS) he has allowed all enemies of the ongoing globalization to rally to any opposed cause, no matter how ephemeral. But it may turn out that these short-lived oppositional movements are well-nigh innumerable. ...So, exactly what should Kojeve, given his intentions, have done? He should have worked in the French Ministry (Kojeve is the true architect of the European Union, a building block of the World State), brought out the unjustly ignored, and posthumously published, 'Outline of a Phenomenology of Right', and told Queneau precisely where he could stick his class notes. By publishing the technical, legal and economic 'Outline' and keeping his philosophical speculations permanently to himself he could have (perhaps!) prevented his followers from squabbling over issues that cannot even be decided until the UHS rises...
For as Kojeve admitted in a letter to Leo Strauss, "Historical action necessarily leads to a specific result (hence: deduction), but the ways that lead to this result, are varied (all roads lead to Rome!). The choice between these ways is free, and this choice determines the content of the speeches about the action and the meaning of the result. In other words: materially history is unique, but the spoken story can be extremely varied, depending on the free choice of how to act." (On Tyranny, p 256). Thus the propaganda (i.e., 'the spoken story', theory) is not essential, and here Kojeve remains true to his (peculiar) Marxism, what is crucial is 'material' History. By this Kojeve means the technical, economic and legal forces that inexorably (or so it seems) drive us towards the World State (i.e., UHS). Thus Kojeve's propaganda and predictions, best embodied in the 'Introduction', were always secondary. ...Would we be closer to the UHS if the 'Introduction' never saw the light of day? Of course we will never know. But this possibility can never be discounted either.
Four and a half stars, Five reserved for Hegel.......2005-04-19
What has really been puzzling so many readers of the Introduction is the so-called `Japanization' note (p 159) added to the second edition of the Introduction. It is this perplexing note that I would like to address in this review. This note is where Kojeve first admits that posthistory, as he originally conceived it, was contradictory, that if "Man becomes an animal again, his arts, his loves, and his play must become purely natural again." Humans would "construct their edifices and works of art as birds build their nests and spiders spin their webs, would perform musical concerts after the fashion of frogs and cicadas, would play like young animals, and would indulge in love like adult beasts."
Truly frightening. -Men as beasts! It reminds one of the myth of Plato's (269bff) Reversed Cosmos in the Statesman; men living as contented animals, growing ever more ignorant under the care of the gods/who Kojeve would say equal nature. But it gets worse! ""The definitive annihilation of Man properly so-called" also means the definitive disappearance of human Discourse (Logos) in the strict sense." After comparing the ruins of language (in posthistory) to the language of bees Kojeve says "[W]hat would disappear, then, is not only Philosophy or the search for discursive Wisdom, but also that Wisdom itself. For in these post-historical animals, there would no longer be any "[discursive] understanding of the world and of self."" The Wisdom gained for humanity by the correct understanding of the ruses of History - Hegelianism/w Kojeve - would be lost forever. Thus there would be no Sages contemplating the History that could only (perhaps!) have led to them.
Then he goes on to say that this view was mistaken, he came to realize (1948-1958) that posthistory was already here and that Americans(!) most closely embodied it. By posthistory he means that all history, since the publication (1806) of the Phenomenology, has simply been the activity of `backward' nations becoming more like what Hegel envisioned for them (embodying the laws/institutions of the French Revolution) and various anachronisms (in all states) being gradually eliminated. Obviously, since 1806, Logos (discursive understanding) has not disappeared entirely from the face of the earth - even in America! (Kojeve appears long after 1806, and he has American readers, and Kojeve is indeed a Sage. ...Whew!) "I was led to conclude from this that "the American way of life" was the type of life specific to the post-historical period, the actual presence of the United States in the world prefiguring the "eternal present" future of all humanity. Thus Man's return to animality appeared no longer as a possibility that was yet to come, but as a certainty that was already present." The problem and contradictions of his first understanding seem to be solved with this second (Americanization) understanding. Discursive understanding endures, the Sages will come, the Circularity of the Whole will be comprehended (if only by the Sages) and Kojeve will be remembered. - Problem solved.
...But he doesn't end the note with that. He next speaks of Japanization - but why? His `contradictory' understanding has been corrected by the above. The possibility of discursive understanding remains; the Hegelian/Kojevean Sages can continue to discuss the History that leads to Them and Their Understanding. So why does Kojeve continue his note? He doesn't exactly tell us why. We need to ferret it out. "Now, the existence of the Japanese nobles, who ceased to risk their lives (even in duel) and yet did not for that begin to work, was anything but animal." But he had just shown, thanks to the `Americanization' thesis, that, strictly speaking, animality would not occur. Why is the `Japanization' Thesis necessary?
...Hmmm. The Japanese had experienced the End of History by isolating themselves for 300 years. But they kept a nobility! America hasn't done that. (Is this why Japanization is superior to Americanization? It keeps a nobility? Is this merely a sop to 'exceptions' + sophists that will not become Sages? But why even bother with a concession? Can History actually be restarted - remember, according to the `Americanization' Thesis History has already ended - again?) How did Japan keep a nobility? Through snobbery! Kojeve says there is no Religion, Morals, Politics in the European or historical (by this he means the dialectically expansive Hegelian) sense in Japan. Are we to understand by this that there is "Religion, Morals, Politics" in some non-European, non-historical sense?
The last sentence made us pause; the next sentence makes us stop. "Bur Snobbery in its pure form created disciplines negating the "natural" or "animal" given which in effectiveness far surpassed those that arose, in Japan or elsewhere, from historical Action - that is, from warlike and revolutionary Fights or from forced work." What exactly does Kojeve mean here by effectiveness? How could Snobbery surpass in effectiveness the "historical Action" so unforgettably understood in Hegel's Phenomenology? ...Examples of Snobbery (which are "peaks equaled nowhere else") listed by Kojeve, which one would hope answer our question about effectiveness, are Noh Theater, the tea ceremony and the art of flower display!
I do not mean to sound like a Snob :-) but all this (Noh Theater, etc) does seem to somewhat lack the drama and import (to say the least!) of Hegel's Phenomenology or even Kojeve's commentary. ...So, what is the effectiveness that Kojeve speaks of? He continues by saying that "all Japanese without exception are currently in a position to live according to totally formalized values-that is, values completely empty of all "human" content in the "historical" sense." What Kojeve is indicating is that some form of humanity (values) is still possible after history ends, after no one any longer Fights or risks their life. There still is perfectly gratuitous suicide - hari-kari - but as Kojeve points out, this suicide "has nothing to do with the risk of life in a Fight waged for the sake of "historical" values that have social or political content."
Again, we ask, why does Kojeve find all this so effective? Japanization seems, if anything, thanks to its ahistorical nature, to be the exact opposite of effectiveness from a Hegelo/Kojevian perspective. Kojeve continues, "This seems to allow one to believe that the recently begun interaction between Japan and the Western World will finally lead not to a rebarbarization[!] of the Japanese but to a "Japanization" of the Westerners (including the Russians)." We need to be more than surprised when Kojeve refers to the Westernization of Japan as a rebarbarization. The rebarbarization that Kojeve is speaking of is the bringing of Japan into line with the Hegelian/Kojevean History. ...One is left wondering if Kojeve believed his theory as little as Leo Strauss did.
...Or perhaps only the human consequences of his theory are what troubled Kojeve, not its correctness. "Now, since no animal can be a snob, every "Japanized" post-historical period would be specifically human." But how can the animal Man, as Snob, remain Human when he no longer Fights or Works? Kojeve, in the penultimate sentence of this note says, "To remain Human, Man must remain a "Subject opposed to the Object," even if "Action negating the given and Error" disappears." For the Sages there is no longer Error in posthistory because there is no more historical change. (Man does not live temporally any longer, now, at the End of History, he lives spatially, he is only another piece of nature.) But how can man live non-temporally?
Kojeve ends this note thusly; "This means that, while henceforth speaking in an adequate fashion of everything that is given to him, post-historical Man must continue to detach "form" from "content," doing so no longer in order actively to transform the latter, but so that he may oppose himself as a pure "form" to himself and to others taken as "content" of any sort." This then, of course, is what Kojeve means by the "effectiveness" of `Japanization.' The Sages keep their discursive understanding of the Circularity of the Concept while the `nobility' (exceptions, sophists) unfortunate enough to live at the End of History will continue to struggle, but fundamentally only with(in) themselves. There will be exactly zero Historical import to these struggles. History has ended but the struggle for recognition, in an entirely non-Historical sense, continues thru Snobbery. Thus we have Absolute Knowledge and (a rather peculiar) Humanity at the same time. Kojeve thus sets the table, in the `eternally present future' of the End of history, for us to always have our cake (our Humanity) while eating it (Knowing this Humanity in a complete, absolute, unchanging and adequate manner) too. ...This is what Kojeve is pleased to call `effectiveness'.
At this point some minor observations may be in order. This note we have been considering is an addendum to a note that began on page 157. The paragraph that the first (or original) note attempted to clarify had at least one remarkable statement (p 156) in it: "The Real resists Action not Thought." If this is true (and I believe it is) we see another example of the effectiveness of the `Japanization' thesis. While material/institutional History may End exactly as Hegel/Kojeve say it will end it would seem there is more than one way to `discursively understand' this End.
Kojeve had indicated something similar to this in an earlier letter to Strauss (Sep 19 1950) that says:
"Historical action necessarily leads to a specific result (hence: deduction), but the ways that lead to this result, are varied (all roads lead to Rome!). The choice between these roads is free, and this choice determines the content of the speeches about the action and the meaning of the result. In other words: materially history is unique, but the spoken story can be extremely varied, depending on the free choice of how to act."
The similarity between this note (in a letter) to Strauss and the remark quoted above is that material history is unique (because the Real resists Action, erroneous action is purged by the very Real process of History) but the difference is that in this letter Kojeve seems to be insisting that speech follows the (material) results of Action. This is in fact contradicted by the statement: The Real resists Action not Thought. This says, for those that have ears to hear, that even though (or if) History ends exactly as Hegel/Kojeve say it must end there is no guarantee that the discursive (ahem) `understanding' of this unique and necessary End will be `correct' - by `correct' I merely mean Hegelo-Kojevean.
This is perhaps where the `effectiveness' of the `Japanization' Thesis really lies. Whatever `chatter' arises - after the unavoidable Unique + Necessary End of History in the Hegel/Kojevean sense - among the non-Sages can be understood as a form of Snobbery! Even a non-historical Religion/Politics/Morals, as Kojeve indicates in the Note (P 161) to the Second Edition, would seem to be possible! Thus the Japanization Thesis is not merely a concession to the exceptions/sophists that cannot (or will not) become Sages; it is also (more profoundly) a concession necessitated by the fantasy-like nature of thought itself. The material (and institutional) End of History, as envisioned by Hegel/Kojeve, may well be unavoidable and unique but, given the fact that the Real doesn't resist Thought, exactly anything can be said (or thought, which inevitably becomes speech) of this unavoidable End. And the Sages, at the end of this Unique History, point to the chattering sophists/exceptions and they say - Snobbery! The only unanswered question these Sages now face is can these thoughtful fantasies, when spoken, restart History? Or to put this another way, is it thru these thoughtful snobbish dreams that Mastery, in the Historical sense, re-enters the world?
A brilliantly lucid, if not 'purist', guide to Hegel.......2003-02-05
As noted by other reviewers, this reading of Hegel is a post-Nietzsche, post-Marx, post-Heidegger one (meaning it incorporates or synthesizes these post-Hegel, though influenced-by-Hegel, strains of thought). It is therefore scorned by some Hegel 'purists' like Mr. Trejo below. However, having read quite a few commentaries on and interpretations of the Phenomenology I can say that this one is the most well-written, in the sense that it illuminates some very difficult Hegelian concepts (like "Spirit" itself) in a searingly direct manner. I have also never read another writer so convincing in their argument as to Hegel's essential rightness in his description of the Concept which brings closure to the riddle of Western metaphysics.
I would agree with the 'purists' in not taking this book as the 'definitive' interpretation of Hegel - it can't excuse not reading Hegel in the original, or other commentaries - but I would call it essential within the spectrum of Hegelian thought.
Interestingly, this book shows Hegel, though famously critical of Kant, to be essentially the extender of the Kantian philosophy to it's logical conclusion which is the completion of the Concept of Experience, identified as Time itself (ZeitGeist). That is, Human Time, initiated by the emergence of specifically Human Desires (i.e.; for recognition), as the Absolute Subject which constructs itself rationally via reflection on it's Object-negating or given-negating activity or creativity, not in the classical notion of a rational Time as existing somehow outside or independently of a Subject).
Kojeve's reading however, though convincing in it's demonstration of anthropologically necessary Historical development toward Hegelian 'harmony' between the Subject and it's Object, leaves out Hegel's attempt at the absolute identity of the Object itself. This can be read in two ways that Kojeve touches on. First, in the truer-to-Hegel sense that the Object is necessarily different from the Subject to ensure the ability of the Subject to realize itself as Self, as free Subject of Object-negating, creative, activity. Another way to read this is as simply Kojeve's dismissal of Hegel's Philosophy of Nature and it's more cosmic attempt at spiritualizing the notion of matter. Either way, as many Hegel commentator's have noted, one is left, though undoubtedly further enlightened regarding the nature of subjectivity, with a sense that there is still something 'out there' and unknown, ala Kant's 'thing-in-itself'. This can be understood as the Heidegger-influenced side of Kojeve's reading.
My own conclusion at the moment is that both Hegel and the existentialist school following him can be understood as essentially philosophers of subjectivity in the Western tradition who have rationally illuminated, but also thoroughly exhausted the questioning of the Self about it's nature.
Book Description
Few thinkers are more controversial in the history of philosophy than Hegel. He has been dismissed as a charlatan and obscurantist, but also praised as one of the greatest thinkers in modern philosophy. No one interested in philosophy can afford to ignore him. This volume considers all the major aspects of Hegel's work: epistemology, logic, ethics, political philosophy, aesthetics, philosophy of history, philosophy of religion. Special attention is devoted to problems in the interpretation of Hegel: the unity of the Phenomenology of Spirit; the value of the dialectical method; the status of his logic; the nature of his politics. A final group of chapters treats Hegel's complex historical legacy: the development of Hegelianism and its growth into a left and right wing school; the relation of Hegel and Marx; and the subtle connections between Hegel and contemporary analytic philosophy.
Download Description
Few thinkers are more controversial in the history of philosophy than Hegel. He has been dismissed as a charlatan and obscurantist, but also praised as one of the greatest thinkers in modern philosophy. No one interested in philosophy can afford to ignore him. This volume considers all the major aspects of Hegel's work: epistemology, logic, ethics, political philosophy, aesthetics, philosophy of history, philosophy of religion. Special attention is devoted to problems in the interpretation of Hegel: the unity of the Phenomenology of Spirit; the value of the dialectical method; the status of his logic; the nature of his politics. A final group of chapters treats Hegel's complex historical legacy: the development of Hegelianism and its growth into a left and right wing school; the relation of Hegel and Marx; and the subtle connections between Hegel and contemporary analytic philosophy.
Customer Reviews:
Without equality ?.......2007-06-11
In the beginning of "The Doctrine of the Notion" find we "The relation of substance resulted from the nature of essence;" The example for the relation of substantiality is the causal necessity. Therefore it is said: "The transition of the relation of substantiality takes place through its own immanent necessity and is nothing more than the manifestation of itself, that the Notion is its truth, and that freedom is the truth of necessity."
Hegel says that the Notion(subject) and freedom are the truth of necessity. In short, this means the truth of nature is mind. Here the relation between necessity and freedom is told, but not equality. Is equality nature or mind? In other words, which truth [of what the truth] on earth is equality?
We know the Idea of the French Revolution of liberty, equality and fraternity( liberte, egalite et fraternite). True, we can understand Hegelian explanation about liberty, but does also equality come out from his logical explanation?
Pure Metaphysics!.......2006-01-19
Can you read and understand a book on pure concepts, pure notions? I mean concepts that you cannot see on earth, represent, imagine!? Without things like dogs, tables, cards, girls...
Can you imagine the pure being? The nothing? Try to describe it in words... It's hard, isn't it? Now try to solve all the pure, teoretical problems of philosophy in a book... This is, in fact, a very hard work.
Hegel writes this book!!!
Now you think you are smart and intelligent... so try to read this!!! Believe me, it makes sense!!!
See you after 10 years of hard work (the time needed to seriously understand this book).
PS. It is important a good knowledge in history of philosophy (specially the works of Plato and Aristole).
Poor rating for the binding, not the book........2005-03-17
An online review is a particularly inapt place to try to comment on the Logic itself - so I'll not do so. I will point out, however, that this is the most poorly bound book I have ever purchased. If one buys this book, chances are it will see some use - yet with even the most casual reading, the pages begin to separate from the spine. Anything more than casual reading will see the pages plumb fall out.
While there's a certain amount of poetic justice to this - it's a reminder, a propos of Hegel, that the material instantiation will fall away, leaving the essential, conceptual core in its wake - that's cold comfort after paying $35. I would recommend, if at all possible, that you try to find a hardcover edition.
Two whole months down the drain!.......2003-03-11
It is with much regret and shame that I admit I spent two solid months of my life labouring to get through this book. I obviously did it out of obstinate stubborness, triggered by a college professor who chided that there was "no way I would be able to get through this book". In the time you will have to spend to get through this, you could instead read countless works which are better written AND simultaneously more profound and beneficial to the reader. If you have the time and energy to read something like Hegel's _Science of Logic_, please take my advice and read the complete works of Carl G. Jung instead. I realize that Jung is of a vastly different genre and time period, but after reading modern psychoanalysis, it is hard for me to get exited about something like Hegel anymore. Although there are some very fascinating aspects to this book, the reader does not stand to benefit in any realistic way from reading Hegel's _Science of Logic_.
The one thing I did like about this book is Hegel's discussion on the true nature of calculus and other advanced mathematics. Hegel reminds us that most types of calculus, and simple algebra for that matter, are limited in that they require the mathematician to have final answers before he can even proceed, and the mathematical process is usually just an exercise in seeing how one arrives at these final answers. In other words, mathematics is more about tracing the path connecting beginning and end points in an equation, after this end point is already known, than it is about conjuring up answers from nothing. Another interesting aspect of this book is its innovative contributions to the world of chemistry and the origins of the modern periodic table of the elements. Hegel sheds light on the earliest days of modern chemistry, reminding us of the revolutionary processes that led up to our understanding of chemical elements and compounds. We are reminded that everything stems from and starts with the compound, and the existence of the pure elements is inferred later by analysing phenomenon such as "mixing ratios" and saturation/absorbtion capacities. Hegel explains these founding pillars of chemical wisdom which many modern scientists take for granted. It is admittedly interesting to read about the processes that led to the discovery of the now-ubiquitous periodic table.
Hege's masterpiece!!.......2002-10-26
I like it a lot. You should read it because it is insightful.
Book Description
German Philosophers contains studies of four of the most important German theorists: Kant, arguably the most influential modern philosopher; Hegel, whose philosophy inspired an enduring vision of a communist society; Schopenhauer, renowned for his pessimistic preference for non-existence; and Nietzsche, who has been appropriated as an icon by an astonishingly diverse spectrum of people.
Customer Reviews:
great introductions, great bargain.......2003-03-23
Of the two reprint volumes (Greek and German Philosophers) that Oxford has published of its Past Masters series, I think all of the individual essays (except the one on Plato) are reprinted currently in its 'Very Short Introduction to...' series. So these volumes are a good deal because i think the 'Very Short Introduction' series are 10 bucks each. As well as being very clear and concise introductions by world renowned scholars.
Profound ideas from some profound thinkers.......2001-12-15
I was already familiar with these philosophers after taking a course in philosophy, but the way in which these authors eluciate the ideas of these thinkers makes this a five-star book. In order of their greatness I'd have to place Nietzsche first, Scophenhauer second, Kant third, and while Hegel was profound, his worship of history was a little too much for me to swallow, so I place him last.
The best of the hardest.......2000-07-13
These are highly admirable overviews by some of the best of the current set of the philsophers examining past greats.
This must have been a difficult book to put together. The editors would have to have found not one, but four great authors from which to put together introductions for the hardest authors in all philosophy.
He succeeded. This book makes immediately explaicable two of the hardest authors in all history- Kant and Hegel. I was amazed at the level of commentary in this short a work. It is almost impossible to pull this easy an introduction off. My hat is off to both Scruton and Singer.
The other commentaries and introcductions were as good as they come. Because of the ease of Schoepenhaur and Nietzsche, the authors had more room to give reasonably complete explanations and ruminations on their lives. Janner and Tannaway both make superb additions to these traditions, both commentaries worthy of being works in themselves.
This is four times a good book. My respect to all the authors, and my full throated call for people to read these books.
Simply outstanding.......2000-04-07
All of the philosophers covered in this volume are difficult to read. They are difficult to read for several reasons, including: 1) some of the translations of the primary texts are mediocre at best; 2)translations never truly capture the intent of the original texts; and 3) even in the original German the ideas are challenging and difficult. Because of these difficulties, this book, which provides incisive accounts of the German philosophers, is particularly useful to the English-speaking reader. Highly recommended.
A Great Book.......1999-09-04
This is a truly wonderful book. The reader can grasp what is being said in a relatively short time and spend the rest of his life thinking about it. I recommend it to newcomers in philosophy to get a good introduction to the some great philosophical thinking as well as to more seasoned practitioners so that they may learn how to explain things.
Book Description
This is the most important book on Hegel to have appeared in the past ten years. The author offers a completely new interpretation of Hegel's idealism that focuses on Hegel's appropriation and development of Kant's theoretical project. Hegel is presented neither as a pre-critical metaphysician nor as a social theorist, but as a critical philosopher whose disagreements with Kant, especially on the issue of intuitions, enrich the idealist arguments against empiricism, realism, and naturalism. In the face of the dismissal of absolute idealism as either unintelligible or implausible, Pippin explains and defends an original account of the philosophical basis for Hegel's claims about the historical and social nature of self-consciousness and of knowledge itself.
Customer Reviews:
The standard for all future English language interpretations.......1999-01-17
An outstanding achievement. This book has been profoundly influential in contemporary Hegel scholarship, outlining a new and exciting strategy for defending the Hegelian project against its many critics.
Pippin's main interpretive contribution is to take seriously Hegel's claim that his philosophy is properly conceived of as a completion of the Kantian Critical project: the attempt to defend substantive metaphysical conclusions without dogmatism. In so doing, Pippin seeks to put to rest the age old accusation that Hegel's philosophy marks a return the pre-Kantian (or "pre-Critical") metaphysics which Kant justifiably criticizes in the Critique of Pure Reason.
In the course of developing this interpretive line, Pippin backs off strong claims for the necessity of dialectical transitions and develops a somewhat 'deflationary' interpretation of the so-called "absolute knowledge" which is supposedly legitimated at the end of the dialectic. Instead of understanding the result of the dialectical argument as a Table of Categories (a la Kant), Pippin argues that what gets "absolutized" is the dialectical method itself. I.e., Pippin argues that the dialectic of the Phenomenology defends an account of the necessary conditions for the possibility of account giving, not an account of the necessary conditions for the possibility of experience. In so doing, Pippin also reinterprets the significance of Hegel's famous End of History claim: what has come to an end is not the history of different models of experience or reality, but the history of how it is that we seek to these models.
Pippin's book is composed of three sections: the first traces the development of Hegel's philosophy out of trends and difficulties implicit within the Kantian and post-Kantian German Idealist tradition; the second develops a sophisticated interpretation of Hegel's most influential work, The Phenomenology of Spirit; and the third shows how the philosophical approach which Hegel develop in the Phenomenology informs his mature science (e.g., the Encyclopedia and the Science of Logic).
Pippin's book proceeds at a high level of philosophical sophistication and demands a lot from the "lay reader"; but its rewards are equal to the labors it demands. It is of relevance to anyone interested in German Idealism, phenomenology, the history of European philosophy, questions about the limits of reason, the philosophy of the subject, or the modern/post-modern debate.
Book Description
This is a new translation, with running commentary, of what is perhaps the most important short piece of Hegel's writing. The Preface to Hegel's first major work, the Phenomenology of Spirit, lays the groundwork for all his other writing by explaining what is most innovative about Hegel's philosophy.
This new translation combines readability with maximum precision, breaking Hegel's long sentences and simplifying their often complex structure. At the same time, it is more faithful to the original than any previous translation.
The heart of the book is the detailed commentary, supported by an introductory essay. Together they offer a lucid and elegant explanation of the text and elucidate difficult issues in Hegel, making his claims and intentions intelligible to the beginner while offering interesting and original insights to the scholar and advanced student. The commentary often goes beyond the particular phrase in the text to provide systematic context and explain related topics in Hegel and his predecessors (including Kant, Spinoza, and Aristotle, as well as Fichte, Schelling, Hölderlin, and others).
The commentator refrains from playing down (as many interpreters do today) those aspects of Hegel's thought that are less acceptable in our time, and abstains from mixing his own philosophical preferences with his reading of Hegel's text. His approach is faithful to the historical Hegel while reconstructing Hegel's ideas within their own context.
Customer Reviews:
Looks like a great tool........2006-05-30
Perused this in the real-world bookstore two nights ago. Half the book is Yovel's introduction, the other half is his commentary on the Preface.
The commentary not only identifies allusions to Schelling et al., but does a good job of identifying Hegelian terms of art (like "immediacy") and explaining them. Yovel also discusses places he disagrees with Miller's translations of terms or phrases.
With Yovel under your belt, you are surely much better prepared to tackle the "Phenomenology."
Customer Reviews:
Worth it for the discussion of Marxism.......2007-10-10
Popper's criticism of Marxist thought is the real payoff of the two volumes of this work. He writes with a passion that is at times overwrought - especially when teeing off against Plato and Hegel. Whether his criticism of their views is on the mark is incidental to the attack on Marx, and I leave it to the scholars of each to debate the merits of his critique. What Popper brings to the table is a clear exposition of his ideas. He makes a solid case for "social engineering" (an accurate but unfortunate term) as both a description of the past century and a prescription for addressing the problems with economic and social systems. This is a valuable and challenging book which will reward the reader willing to think through Popper's analysis.
Philosophy of History: Prove untruth, not truth.......2007-05-04
To Popper, science is a process of "conjectures and refutations"-- advancing bold conjectures about the state of the world and then trying to refute them. "Even in the study of history, objectivity should be sought in the institutions and traditions of a discipline. It is only through the give and take of open criticism and the ongoing interplay of many different kinds of biases that anything approaching objectivity will emerge." Thus, "truth" is seen as a hypothesis--you can't prove truth, you can only prove untruth. This is because one cannot know everything, therefore, nothing can be proved to be true.
Open societies, in Popper's definition, with their ideals of freedom and reason, of men who may create their own future, are opposed to the regimes of authoritarianism and totalitarianism. Hegel and Marx are the main focus of the book. Aristotle built his theory on Plato; Hegel on Aristotle; Marx on Hegel. Popper is concerned with their philosophies of history. A philosophy of history is an attempt to interpret systematically the historical process by a principle that unifies the results of research and points to an "ultimate meaning" behind the process. It involves systematic reflection on scientifically derived data about the past. All the parts are unified to form a whole with "ultimate meaning."
It was thus not Marx's historicist method which led him to success, but instead the "methods of institutional analysis." In many democratic, capitalist countries production has been so great that the workers have a higher standard of living than Marx ever envisaged. He also had an unrealistic view of human nature--that because man is born good, changing his environment will bring happiness. But this view ignores the universality of human imperfection, and the sacredness of personality that is lost in the communist state.
Yet, Popper claims that Marx has done Christianity a great service by pointing out the humanitarian demands of Christ. Popper made many generalizations about Christianity without describing the basic tenets that have made Christianity "the strongest opponent of Communism." Popper does not view Christianity as being a "substitute from dreams and wish--fulfillment; it should resemble neither the holding of a ticket in a lottery, nor the holding of a policy in an insurance company." Popper opposes a "leap in the dark" of faith, whether by Marxists probing the beginning of evolution, or by those experiencing a personal relationship with God. Faith is necessary, but it is to be based on a rational understanding of the difference between belief and fact, and the appropriate place for both.
Portrait of the Philosopher-King as an Artist.......2006-08-22
When confronted with the rise of totalitarianism and the destruction of all that he held dear, Poper felt a single, overwhelming urge: to return to the Greeks, to the dawn of our civilization, so as to understand the root of the evil and to offer a practical way out of bestiality. His search was motivated by the insight that "this civilization has not yet fully recovered from the shock of its birth--the transition from the tribal or 'closed society', with its submission to magical forces, to the 'open society', which sets free the critical powers of man."
Heraclitus set the stage with his claim that "the cosmos, at best, is like a rubbish heap scattered at random." If "everything is in flux" and "you cannot step twice into the same river", then at least we can try to discover the historical or evolutionary laws which will enable us to prophesy the destiny of man.
Plato's claim to greatness is to have discovered such a law: that "all social change is corruption or decay or degeneration," and that the only way to break this cycle of decay is to arrest development and return to the Golden Age, where no change occurs. His belief in perfect and unchanging things, the Platonic Ideas from which all things originate, finds its expression in all fields of inquiry: be it social justice, nature and convention, wisdom and truth, or goodness and beauty.
Behind these lofty ideals, Popper uncovers a discomforting truth: Plato envisioned the ideal Greek polity as a totalitarian nightmare, where the 'race of the guardians' had to be kept pure from any miscegenation and where the role of the rulers was to breed the human cattle according to some esoteric formula (the 'Platonic Number', a number determining the True Period of the human race). Along his apology of Sparta came his endorsement of infanticide and his recommendation that children of both sexes be "brought within the sight of actual war and made to taste blood."
Popper demonstrates that these crazy ideas were not the vague mumblings of an otherwise sound philosopher: they were central tenets in Plato's philosophy, a system which has been characterized by another author as "the most savage and most profound attack upon liberal ideas which history can show."
Popper connects this extreme radicalism of the Platonic approach with its aestheticism, i.e. with "the desire to build a world which is not only a little better and more rational than ours, but which is free from all its ugliness." Plato, the Philosopher-King, can be best characterized as an artist: a man attracted to a world of pure beauty, a craftsman who tries to visualize an ideal model of his work and to copy it faithfully, and for whom "the part has to be executed for the sake of the whole, and not the whole for the sake of the part." His desire to "start from a clean canvas" or his claim to prefer "the original to the copy" find disturbing echoes in contemporary political debates. Contrary to Plato's belief, however, the canvas can never be made clean, and the copy often improves upon the original.
Let's give Popper the last word: "But there I must protest. I do not believe that human lives may be made the means for satisfying an artist's desire for self-expression. We must demand, rather, that every man should be given, if he wishes, the right to model his life himself, as far as this does not interfere too much with others. Much as I sympathize with the aesthetic impulse, I suggest that the artist might seek expression in another material."
Read the free excerpt - pg 7 Plato vs Pericles.......2006-03-10
Click on the book and keep clicking to page 7 - two quotes from Plato vs Pericles, which could have been written yesterday.
I may be moving and I'm busy, so no I have not read the book, but every now and then I reread that page 7 - how INSPIRING !
A DIFFERENT VIEW OF PLATO.......2005-10-30
I wish Popper were still alive because there are so FEW philosophers who can write so clearly.
Volume 1 of the Open Society is a critique of historicism and an analysis of how Plato's later thought supports totalitarianism, not democracy.
Popper presents a convincing argument about the danger of deifying philosophers of the past. He shows how some of the ideas of Plato are imbedded in our culture in ways that do not always support an Open Society, by which he means not only democracy but a society that is OPEN to learning from its mistakes and adapting to change.
If you are interested in political philosophy or the interaction of philosopy and society, this book is worth your time.
Book Description
Pippin disputes many traditional characterizations of the distinctiveness of modern philosophy. In their place he defends claims about agency, freedom, ethical life, and modernity itself that were central to the German idealist philosophical tradition and, in particular, to the writings of Hegel.
Books:
- Phenomenology of Spirit (Galaxy Books)
- Phenomenology of Spirit (Galaxy Books)
- Philosophers Stone P
- Philosophical Investigations (3rd Edition)
- Physical Chemistry
- Plutarch's Lives Volume 1 (Modern Library Classics)
- Public Relations: The Complete Guide
- Residential Lighting: A Practical Guide
- Reyita: The Life of a Black Cuban Woman in the Twentieth Century
- Saving Graces: Finding Solace and Strength from Friends and Strangers
Books Index
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Classics
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Introduction to the Reading of Hegel: Lectures on the Phenomenology of Spirit (Agora Paperback Editions)
The Philosophy of History (Great Books in Philosophy)
Being and Time
The World As Will and Representation, In Two Volumes: Vol. I
Being And Nothingness
