Abstract

One of the most important achievements of the Internationale Hegel-Vereinigung over the past twenty years has been the way in which it has managed to meet the needs of both the specialist and the general public. In the normal course of events it organizes symposia on research subjects. Every two years it gets a group of experts to pool information and exchange views within a relatively narrow field of inquiry, a comparatively neglected topic which looks as though it might benefit from being brought into the limelight. In order to maintain its international character, it is the general rule that these meetings should take place outside Germany, that they should be hosted by one or other of the countries from which the Society draws its members. It is often the case that they are sponsored by the respective Academy of Sciences or Ministry of Culture. Those invited to take part in them can, therefore, be pretty certain that they are being co-opted into a well co-ordinated program. They also know that their papers will be appearing in a series widely recognized as a trendsetter in continental Hegel studies, in an undertaking which already includes such influential publications as Gadamer’s edition of the Urbino Lectures, Well’s edition of the Lille papers on Objective Spirit, the Zwettl papers on the Jena Period, and the proceedings of the Amersfoort meeting on the Philosophy of Nature.