Hegel's Science of Logic

Hegel's Science of Logic
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Without equality ?

Pure Metaphysics!

Poor rating for the binding, not the book.

Two whole months down the drain!

Hege's masterpiece!!

Hegel's Science of Logic
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Manufacturer: Prometheus Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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The Encyclopaedia Logic: Part 1 of the Encyclopaedia of Philosophical Sciences With the Zusatze

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ASIN: 1573922803

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.

The Open Society and Its Enemies: Hegel and Marx (Routledge Classics)

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Worth it for the discussion of Marxism
Philosophy of History: Prove untruth, not truth
Portrait of the Philosopher-King as an Artist
Read the free excerpt - pg 7 Plato vs Pericles
A DIFFERENT VIEW OF PLATO

The Open Society and Its Enemies: Hegel and Marx (Routledge Classics)
Popper Karl
Manufacturer: Routledge
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Binding: Paperback

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The Logic of Scientific Discovery (Routledge Classics)
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Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge (Routledge Classics)
Popper Selections
Objective Knowledge: An Evolutionary Approach

ASIN: 0415278422

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.

Hegel: Elements of the Philosophy of Right (Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought)

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consider an alterative
nice edition of an important book
A Serious Book for Serious People

Hegel: Elements of the Philosophy of Right (Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought)
Georg Wilhelm Fredrich Hegel
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
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ASIN: 0521348889

Book Description

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.

Customer Reviews:

consider an alterative.......2006-02-02

This edition is an enormous improvement over the Knox version published by Oxford, but I have done a third version that I hope you'll consider. Three of its advantages: (1) unlike Wood, I don't proceed on the assumption that Hegel's dialectical logic is nonsensical, so I attempt to clarify it, both in the translation and in notes; (2) additional materials from student transcriptions of Hegel's lectures are included with the sections they relate to, not in endnotes; (3) my edition has no endnotes, only footnotes, so readers don't have to waste time flipping to the end of the book to find what is often irrelevant and distracting information. For more on my edition (titled HEGEL'S PHILOSOPHY OF RIGHT), see the review by Peter Kalkavage on its Amazon page.
Again, I much admire this edition, and if it had been available when I started mine, I wouldn't have started at all. That said, I do think that mine offers significant advantages, including those listed above.

nice edition of an important book.......2004-04-17

Well first off a bit about Hegel: It was, until recently, quite fashionable in English speaking coutries to dismiss Hegel as a charlatan, an apologist for totalitarianism, and an embarassment to the title of philosopher. That's changing, and I tend to think it's for the good. There's a good bit of nonsense in Hegel, but there's also some very important philosophy.
The problem with not dismissing Hegel is that he's one of the most difficult philosophers to make sense of; there are passages, and perhaps entire books, of Hegel's that no one honestly understands. Luckily, the "Elements Philosophy of Right" is not only one of the easier of Hegel's books to read (easy being a relative term), but also the most relevant for the general reader. Since Hegel is speaking of concrete institutions he's much easier to follow here than in most other works. Also, I tend to agree with Wood that Hegel's main contribution to philosophy is in the field of ethics and political philosophy, and this book is the best summation of Hegel's ethical theory.
Okay enough about Hegel, onto this edition of the POR. This edition is great, and anyone who's had the misfortune of readng its predecessors will appreciate just how great. For one thing, the translation is good. Yes Hegel is tough to read, but not as hard to read as many English speaking people think; the English translations are generally terrible. This edition also has Hegel's notes on the work on the same page with what he initially published, unlike other editions, which generally put them at the end. In the earlier editions one had to either turn back and forth constantly, or skip the notes, and one shouldn't skip them because rather than being mere footnotes these notes tend to explain or expand upon the point Hegel is making in rather crucial ways. Probably the best thing about this edition is Allen Wood's excellent introduction, which does an admirable job of clearly summarizing the main theses of this difficult work, while putting Hegel into historical perspective and explaining the continuing relevance of his ethical theory.

A Serious Book for Serious People.......2001-07-12

As a mystery novelist with my first novel in its initial release, I have found that reading a variety of works helps me in my writing. I first came in contact with the works of Hegel as an undergraduate at Claremont McKenna College. Hegel's thoughts have provided foundations for political movements ranging from the far right to the far left, and this work, an excellent translation, provides insight into this thinker's thoughts. Excellent work. A classic in every sense of the word.

Capital as Organic Unity: The Role of Hegel's Science of Logic in Marx's Grundrisse (Philosophical Studies in Contemporary Culture)

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Capital as Organic Unity: The Role of Hegel's Science of Logic in Marx's Grundrisse (Philosophical Studies in Contemporary Culture)
M.E. Meaney
Manufacturer: Springer
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Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 1402010370

Book Description

This is a work of historical critical exegesis. It aims to establish the influence of the Science of Logic (SL) of G.W.F. Hegel on the Grundrisse of Karl Marx. It is the first work in the history of Marx Studies to demonstrate that the Hegelian logic guided Marx's doctrinal development, and that the ordering of the logical categories in the SL is reflected in the ordering of economic categories in the Grundrisse. The Grundrisse are both a critique of political economy, and a critical appropriation of Hegel's SL.
Thus, the work establishes that Marx was cognizant of, and respected, the necessity of the development of Hegel's exposition of logical categories of scientific method. The Grundrisse can therefore be divided into three sections. Each is distinguished from the others based upon the peculiar logic that is used in the exposition of the particular subject matter that is treated in that section.
This work uses a particular form of historical critical exegesis that relies on "concept exegesis" ( Begriffsexegese). It attempts to establish that the ideas that are found in one text are related to ideas in another; and, to be more specific, that the logical form of one work is indebted to the logical form of another. The method that is used in concept exegesis is empirical. The text under scrutiny is first broken down into component parts, and further subdivided. The logical form of the argumentation in each part is isolated. It is then compared to the logical form of another text, for purposes of establishing an indebtedness.

A Commentary on Hegel's Science of Logic

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Indispensable!
This book is good.

A Commentary on Hegel's Science of Logic
David Gray Carlson
Manufacturer: Palgrave Macmillan
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An Introduction to Hegel's Logic (Hackett Classics Series)

ASIN: 1403986282
Release Date: 2007-03-06

Book Description

This book constitutes a major advancement in the study of Hegelian
philosophy by offering the first full commentary on the monumental The Science of Logic, Hegel's principal work which informs every other project Hegel ever undertook. The author has devised a system for diagramming every single logical transition that Hegel makes, many of which have never before been explored in English. This reveals a startling organizational subtlety in Hegel's work which heretofore has gone unnoticed. In the course of charting Hegel's logical progress, the author provides a vigorous defence and thorough explication of unparalleled scale and scope. The book covers the entire range of subjects connected with The Science of Logic such as Being, Essence, Measure, Subjectivity and God, showing how Hegel used logic to make transitions from one category to the next. The book also mediates Hegel's confrontation with Kant, whose Critique of Pure Reason is Hegel's major competition in metaphysical systemization. Any student encountering The Science of Logic, perhaps the most difficult and by far the most rewarding of Hegel's philosophical works, will find in Carlson's book an invaluable companion to their study.

Customer Reviews:

Indispensable!.......2007-05-10

A significant advance to the understanding of Hegel's rewarding but notoriously obscure Science of Logic. From this enthusiast's point of view this book should become the key study guide. In looking over the diagrams which make explicit Hegel's system, I wonder if Hegel himself was really even aware of the progression which Dr. Carlson describes. I was ready to give up on Attraction/Repulsion, but this analysis made it understandable. Highly recommended.

This book is good........2007-03-28

Understanding is a term of art in Hegel. But Carlson (a law professor) will help you understand as he presents an organized (albeit typo-ridden) walkthru of GWF Hegel's monumental work: The Science of Logic. The typo's are mostly insignificant and it is the diagrams that are the real charm of this footnote heavy commentary which aims to consolidate all of Hegelian logic into a visual triplet.
beware the silent Fourth! Start with the antepenultimate movement and if you are conscious enough you will reach Absolute Idea.

The book will appeal strongly to those interested in the philosophical groundwork for Marx, Nietzsche or anyone with a psychoanlytic bent (Lacan) or just interest in Western thought.

Basically: Do NOT attempt to read Hegel without it!!!

Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences in Outline: And Critical Writings (German Library)

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Phenomenology, Hegelian Science, and History, again

Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences in Outline: And Critical Writings (German Library)
G. W. F. Hegel
Manufacturer: Continuum International Publishing Group
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Hegel's Science of Logic

ASIN: 0826403409

Customer Reviews:

Phenomenology, Hegelian Science, and History, again.......2007-08-19

This book contains the 1807 Preface to the "Phenomenology of Spirit", the entire 1817 "Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences In Outline" and two essays Hegel wrote (1828) regarding the literary critic Solger. So we here read a bit of Hegel from the beginning, middle, and end of his career. The Preface to the 'Phenomenology' is translated by A. V. Miller, and is the same one found in Miller's full translation of the Phenomenology. The 'Encyclopedia' is translated by Steven A. Taubeneck, and the essays on Solger are translated by Diana I. Behler; both of these were translated specifically for this volume and, according to the 'Note on the Texts', were never translated into English before.

The juxtaposition of the 1807 Preface and the 1817 Encyclopedia is quite suggestive. What were the reasons Hegel later in his career, or so it seems to many of us today, 'downplayed' the 1807 Phenomenology?

"Earlier, in the Phenomenology of Spirit, I have treated the scientific history of consciousness as the first part of philosophy, since it was meant to precede pure science and to generate its concept. At the same time, however, consciousness and its history, like every other philosophical science, are not an absolute beginning, but an element in the circle of philosophy." ("Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences In Outline" [1817], The Science of Logic, Preliminary Concepts, Section 36.)

It would seem that the 'beginning of philosophy' can occur anywhere (the 'circle' of) philosophy is, just as the 'beginning' of a circle can be said to be anywhere along the circumference of that circle. Those that actually Know (i.e., have achieved Hegelian Science) no longer need the Phenomenology. It is a ladder one climbs in order to reach Science. And once one is genuinely there? Well, it is quite inconceivable (for Hegel) that anyone would ever want to go back down. As Wittgenstein would say, throw away the ladder.

But the positions of Hegel and Wittgenstein are not really all that similar. Wittgenstein says,

"6.54 My propositions are elucidatory in this way: he who understands me finally recognizes them as senseless, when he has climbed out through them, on them, over them. (He must so to speak throw away the ladder, after he has climbed up it.)

7 What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence." (Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, concluding propositions.)

Hegel would never say that the propositions of his Logic (or the entire System) were senseless, nor would he even insinuate that philosophy must end in Silence. Clearly, silence is not really Wittgenstein's final position either. He continued his Investigations throughout his life, as did Hegel. Now, there are three Encyclopedia's, each larger than the last. Hegel says of this (1817) Encyclopedia, "The Encyclopedia can contain nothing but the general content of philosophy, that is, the basic concepts and principles of its particular branches..." Of course, this minimalism (an askesis) would not satisfy the generation of Hegelians that rose after Hegel's death. Marx says, in the so-called 'Theses on Feuerbach', "Up until now philosophers have only interpreted the world, the point, however, is to change it."

Thus it can be said (for our present purposes) that Hegel is fighting a two front war; against those that want philosophical silence and those that want (a usually revolutionary) 'activism'. But the Science for the sake of which Hegel philosophized is neither the 'via negativa' of the mystics nor is it a cookbook for concocting utopias. Hegel, fundamentally, and with an awe-inspiring single mindedness, lusted after the Absolute Knowledge that only (or so he believed) his Science (of Wisdom) could deliver.

But, and this is continually lost to many superficial (and not so superficial, but purposeful) readers of Hegel; Absolute Knowledge, according to Hegel, is severely circumscribed. It is not Knowledge of Everything. It is only Knowledge of what can be scientifically (i.e., Science that equals Philosophical Wisdom) Known.

"The encyclopedia of philosophy thus excludes (1) mere assemblages of information, such as philology; and (2) pseudosciences that have mere arbitrariness as their basis, such as for example heraldry. Sciences of this type are thoroughly positive. (3) Other sciences are also called positive, however, that have a rational basis and beginning. This part belongs to philosophy; whereas the positive side remains peculiar to the sciences themselves." (Encyclopedia, Introduction, Section 10, p. 53 of this edition.)

So what does, and what does not, Philosophy Know? Does History have and End as Kojeve taught? But even if History does not End (i.e., reach the level of the Kojevean Universal Homogenous State) how is it that Philosophy Itself has an 'End' (i.e., Absolute Knowledge) when a circle does not?

First, what does Hegel think of contingency and the 'sciences' that must remain mired in it?

"The study of law, for example, or the system of direct or indirect taxation, ultimately require exact decisions that lie outside the determinacy in and for itself of the concept. Thus a certain latitude of determination is left open, so that for one reason something can be said in one way but for another reason it can be said in another, and neither is capable of definite certainty. Similarly, when it is separated into details the idea of nature dissolves into contingencies, and natural history, geography, and medicine stumble over descriptions of reality in terms of kinds and differences, which are not determined by reason but by chance and games. Even history belongs under this category, insofar as the idea is its essence, whose manifestation, however, lies in contingency and arbitrary decisions." (Encyclopedia, Introduction, Section 10, pp. 53-54 of this edition.)

So, you see, the manifestations of history cannot ever be known in their exact specificity, even though Philosophical Science is able to grasp History as Idea (or Concept). Since these manifestations cannot ever be entirely rational there can be no 'End of History' for Hegel. The 'Haecceity' (thisness) of specific circumstances cannot be known, not even by Hegelian Science. After reading the Encyclopedia one comes away thinking that Hegelian Science is not a science of details (philosophically, there can be no such thing) but of basic Concepts and Principles. It was the Hegel's Epigonic followers who donned the mask of prophesy and claimed to Know Everything. But Hegel says of this Encyclopedia that,

"The title should suggest partly the scope of the whole, and partly the attempt to leave the details for oral delivery." (Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences In Outline", Preface.)

One wonders if Hegel means to indicate that, like a circle, Science is now (thanks to Hegel) entirely Known, but the details are endless? A circle has infinite points; and so too, the details of the world Philosophical Science truly knows are also innumerable. But each detail, when (and if) it comes to light, can be Known by Hegelian Science - which is Itself entirely Known. Thus the necessity of "oral delivery" by Hegel (or a Master of Hegelian Science) is as unending as the details are innumerable... The rise of postmodernism perhaps indicates that what in principle can never be known, the specificity of each and all circumstance, has become more interesting to us (late moderns) than what can (one fights against an urge to say 'merely') be Known.

This book gets five stars, not only because it translates the otherwise untranslated 1817 Encyclopedia, but also because it has the Preface of the 1807 Phenomenology. Reading the 1807 Preface and then the 1817 Encyclopedia is an education in itself. I was considerably less interested in the essays on Solger; but Aesthetics has never been a focus of mine. I would have preferred a selection from either the final (1830) Encyclopedia or, perhaps, a little something from the 1831 'Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion'. But that is a quibble, if you are interested in the relation between Phenomenology and System, this is the book for you!

Hegel on Ethics and Politics (The German Philosophical Tradition)

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Hegel on Ethics and Politics (The German Philosophical Tradition)

Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
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Hegel's Idealism: The Satisfactions of Self-Consciousness

ASIN: 0521818141

Book Description

This series makes available in English important recent work by German philosophers on major figures in the German philosophical tradition. The volumes will provide critical perspectives on philosophers of great significance to the Anglo-American philosophical community--perspectives that have been largely ignored except by a handful of writers on German philosophy. This collection brings together in translation the finest post-war German language scholarship on Hegel's social and political philosophy, concentrating on the Elements of the Philosophy of Right.

The Problem of Knowledge: Philosophy, Science, and History Since Hegel

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a great book

The Problem of Knowledge: Philosophy, Science, and History Since Hegel
Ernst Cassirer
Manufacturer: Yale University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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The Philosophy of the Enlightenment

ASIN: 0300010982

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a great book.......2001-01-20

i loved this book, and if you r interested, i recomend it

Marx, the Young Hegelians, and the Origins of Radical Social Theory: Dethroning the Self (Modern European Philosophy)

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Indispensable Intellectual History
A Must Read

Marx, the Young Hegelians, and the Origins of Radical Social Theory: Dethroning the Self (Modern European Philosophy)
Warren Breckman
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
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Binding: Hardcover

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Hegel (The Routledge Philosophers)

ASIN: 0521624401

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This is the first major study of Marx and the Young Hegelians in twenty years. The book offers a new interpretation of Marx's early development, the political dimension of Young Hegelianism, and that movement's relationship to political and intellectual currents in early nineteenth-century Germany. The book draws together an account of major figures such as Feuerbach and Marx, with discussions of lesser-known but significant figures, as well as such movements as French Saint-Simonianism and "Positive Philosophy." Wide-ranging in scope and synthetic in approach this is an important book for historians of philosophy, theology, political theory and nineteenth-century ideas.

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Indispensable Intellectual History.......2006-02-13

This remarkable book makes a significant contribution to the intellectual history of nineteenth-century Europe. Breckman offers a new interpretation of Marx's early development, as well as of the political dimension of Young Hegelianism as a whole and its relationship to the political, theological, and ideological currents of vormärz Germany. He shows that the discussion of Hegelian politics cannot be separated from the theologico-philosophical discussion of the period. Questions of civil society and the state were essentially related to the question of the nature of sovereignty, and sovereignty in turn devolved upon a more basic question about the nature of the self in its manifold roles as "sovereign," "citizen," and "subject." In the context of Germany in the early nineteenth century, this most basic political question was posed in the theologico-philosophical disputes of the day.

To support this contention, Breckman examines the polemical exchanges between Hegelians and Anti-Hegelians in the 1830s. This battle centered on the critical issue of "personality" or "personhood." Theological debates about the personal God crystallized orthodox Christian misgivings about Hegel's alleged pantheism; and the controversy moved easily across the porous divide between religion and politics and society. For the analogy between the personal God and the personal monarch was a mainstay of official Prussian ideology in the post-revolutionary era. The analogy extended further to the private property-owner, understood as a sovereign self. The theological, social and political homologies of Christian personalism structured the opponents of Hegelianism, as well as the the emerging Hegelian radicalism of the 1830s. It provided a basis from within the theological discourse of the time for the critique of the atomistic egotism of civil society and the political unfreedom of monarchy. The progressive Hegelians' association of Christianity with anti-social egoism suggested to them that "Christian civil society" was the obstacle to the realization of a free republic in Germany or, for some of the most radical among them, the obstacle to the fulfillment of more extreme visions of post-Christian social collectivism.

Breckman casts new light on Karl Marx's early development in light of the profound influence of these hitherto neglected debates about personalism. He rethinks Marx's debt to the Young Hegelians by showing that Marx's critique of bourgeois civil society and the state was as much the culmination of an earlier discourse about civil society as it was the initiation of a new one. The book argues that Marx's critical engagement with western European post-revolutionary "modernity," characterized by bourgeois individualism, political liberalism, and capitalism, was in fact filtered through the language and concepts that had evolved in the earlier radical Hegelian reaction against a more parochial Prussian context where liberal political and social forms were still overshadowed by monarchy and vestigial feudalism, and where theological, political, and social themes bled easily into each other. Marx brought along a lot of undeclared baggage when he shifted his scrutiny from the hybrid forms of Prussian society and politics to the political and social landscape of western Europe and America. This helps to explain his fateful identification of all secular conceptions of individualism with Christian personhood and his denunciation of liberalism as the last bastion of theology.

In sum, this is an extraordinary work: deeply researched, well-written, brilliantly argued. It succeeds in breathing new life into a subject that has been heavily worked in the past. The model of "personalism" that Breckman develops has much broader implications for the intersections of theology and politics in France and Britain in the early nineteenth century. This is a must-read for historians of political thought or theology and for philosophers or theologians interested in the Hegelian tradition.

A Must Read.......2003-10-16

Breckman's book does not replace Toews earlier work on the Young Hegelians, but it adds significantly to it. He is, by far, at his best in discussing the relationship between Feuerbach and Stahl, at his weakest in discussing Bauer and Stirner and in danger of being tendentious or merely trivial in his discussion of Marx (but makes some good minor points on Marx's dissertation).

The key idea he brings out most clearly is the centrality of the relationship between the political debate over the appropriateness of sovereignty and the religious debate over the incarnation dogma. The analysis of Feuerbach has always needed this conceptual framework.

If we see the Young Hegelian movement as having three moments - Strauss on Jesus, Feuerbach on humanity and Bauer on critique - Breckman adds significantly to the current analysis on the second moment. For english speaking readers, the superiority of his analysis of Feuerbach to that of Wartovsky is most welcome.

Where his weaknesses are is in the area of philosophy (the unfolding of the German idealist understanding of the unity of apperception) and Marx (the resolution of of personalism in a materialist conception of a unity, rather than an identity). These weaknesses derive from his sympathy for the post-modern pluralist positions of Mouffe, Arrato&Cohen etc. [Torben Bech Dryberg's book sets out this position most effectively.] Although fashionable, this re-articulation of a much older view only gets in Breckman's way when it comes to extending his analysis beyond 1841 when the young Hegelians themselves moved beyond the pluralist (but not liberal view) Breckman likes. A telling point this about the modern reception of the Young Hegelians - see also Kouvelakis for another post-Foucault take on the Young Hegelians.

Book Description

An English translation of Hegel’s introduction to his lectures on the philosophy of history, based directly on the standard German edition by Johannes Hoffmeister, first published in 1955. The previous English translation, by J. Sibree, first appeared in 1857 and was based on the defective German edition of Karl Hegel, to which Hoffmeister’s edition added a large amount of new material previously unknown to English readers, derived from earlier editors. In the introduction to his lectures, Hegel lays down the principles and aims which underlie his philosophy of history, and provides an outline of the philosophy of history itself. The comprehensive and voluminous survey of world history which followed the introduction in the original lectures is of less interest to students of Hegel’s thought than the introduction, and is therefore not included in this volume.

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A great philosopher on importance of history!.......2007-08-15

I read this book for a graduate class in history. Hegel's philosophy of history is perhaps the most fully developed philosophical theory of history that attempts to discover meaning or direction in history. Hegel incorporates a deeper historicism into his philosophical theories than his predecessors or successors. According to Hegel, the events whose story is told by political and legal history can be given a philosophical interpretation that will bring out its philosophical meaning. He does this himself in his lectures on the Philosophy of History. He views it to be a central task for philosophy to comprehend its place in the unfolding of history. History is for Hegel the development of Freedom, or rather, of the consciousness of Freedom. History is the process by which Spirit becomes conscious of itself. Individual thinkers, artists, and historical actors are primarily the means or instruments by which the collective spirit (God in the world) becomes conscious of truth.

Hegel constructs world history into a narrative of stages of human freedom, from the public freedom of the polis and the citizenship of the Roman Republic, to the individual freedom of the Protestant Reformation, to the civic freedom of the modern state. He attempts to incorporate the civilizations of India and China into his understanding of world history, though he regards those civilizations as static and therefore pre-historical. He constructs specific moments as "world-historical" events that were in the process of bringing about the final, full stage of history and human freedom. For example, Napoleon's conquest of much of Europe is portrayed as a world-historical event doing history's work by establishing the terms of the rational bureaucratic state. Hegel finds reason in history; but it is a latent reason, and one that can only be comprehended when the fullness of history's work is finished.

Many in Western Europe saw Europe or the Western European nations as the pinnacle of historical development, poised to carry their mission civilisatrice to Asia, Africa, Oceania. Yes, they could say, ancient civilizations had contributed to the eventual emergence of modern European civilization, but Europe had integrated what was valuable in those ancient insights into a higher form and it could now turn around and offer this higher form of culture to the rest of humanity who had remained "backward" and "underdeveloped." Hegel has very little to say about the New World. He acknowledges that the Native Americans have been overtaken by Europeans, thus the New World is a continuation of the Old World in its civilization and culture. He sees history progressing in America (populated by Englishmen), but finds that it has not matured yet. He sees America as a growing, prosperous, and industrious nation with a population that is a federation of people who love freedom. However, the nation is not politically fixed yet and he thinks, "a real state and a real government will arise only after a distinction of classes has arisen, when wealth and poverty become extreme." However, this can't happen as long as America has vast territory for people to expand and populate, he thinks these changes can't come about until America is as crowded as Europe so that people agitate each other and clamor for change. I think Hegel foresaw the Civil War. I think the America he ultimately envisioned is finally here today. Our country seems to be equally divided politically and I am not sure our present political institutions can hold us together.

Hegel once described Napoleon, whom he observed in the flesh just before or after one of Napoleon's major victories, as "the world spirit on horseback." Napoleon at that time was a major expression of the dynamic process which was transforming Europe in a certain direction. When Napoleon had served his purpose, he was discarded by the World Spirit, which then adopted other political leaders as its means.

It is worth observing that Hegel's philosophy of history is not the caricature of speculative philosophical reasoning that analytic philosophers sometimes paint it. His philosophical approach is not based solely on foundational a priori reasoning. Instead he proposes an "immanent" encounter between philosophical reason and the historical given. His prescription is that the philosopher should seek to discover the rational within the real--not to impose the rational upon the real. "To comprehend what is, this is the task of philosophy, because what is, is reason." Hegel's approach is neither purely philosophical nor purely empirical; instead, he undertakes to discover within the best historical knowledge of his time, an underlying rational principle that can be philosophically articulated.

Recommended reading for anyone interested in philosophy, political science, and history.

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