There is in Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit a relatively brief passage at the beginning of Chapter IV, “Self-Consciousness,” which may well be one of the most difficult passages in the whole Hegelian corpus, but which is also of supreme importance for coming to grips with the movement of Hegel’s thought, not only in the Phenomenology but in the entire “system.” It is precisely the difficulty of the passage, it would seem, that explains why it has not been given by commentators (...) an attention proportionate to its significance. So much attention has been focused on the “independence of self-consciousness,” expressed in the sections on “Lordship and Bondage,” “Stoicism and Skepticism” and “The Unhappy Consciousness” — which are, it is true, important and which lend themselves most readily to extended interpretation — that not enough attention has been given to the introductory section, entitled “The Truth of the Certainty of Self,” in which are enunciated the principles which regulate the whole movement of Hegel’s thought. The section might be described as the indispensable transition from those forms of consciousness, which are merely “objective” yet try to give themselves off as authentic knowing, to what Hegel considers to be the only possible way of authenticating the objectivity of human consciousness, i.e., the self, which claims to know, progressively coming to know itself, a self-knowing which will be knowing at all only if it culminates in “absolute knowing.” Only in the light of this section will the preface be intelligible; only in its light will the whole of the Phenomenology hang together. (shrink)

To those who are already familiar with the minute and detailed erudition which went into M.J. Petry’s three-volume translation of and commentary on Hegel’s “Philosophy of Subjective Spirit” as presented in the 1830 edition of the Encyclopedia, it will come as no surprise that the same author has presented in this sequel an equally meticulous study of the Berlin “Phenomenology of Spirit.” There is, however, a significant difference to be found in this latter work. Whereas, in the earlier “Philosophy of (...) Subjective Spirit”, Petry was content to translate and comment on the 1845 Zusätze, drawn from a variety of sources by Ludwig Boumann, he has been able in the present text to substitute a set of lecture notes written by Major Karl Gustav von Griesheim who attended Hegel’s lectures in Berlin during the Summer Term of 1825, the most complete single set of notes on those lectures now available. Petry assures us that Griesheim must have taken down Hegel’s lectures word for word, thus, presumably, assuring us of a text which is at once more reliable and more authoritative than the Encyclopedia text which Hegel himself had published - this, despite the many utter incoherences of Griesheim’s text! If nothing else, this explains the disproportionate number of notes devoted to Griesheim’s text rather than to Hegel’s; Petry is concerned not with the Encyclopedia but with the “Lectures” - and Griesheim’s transcript is the most reliable order to make sense out of Griesheim. (shrink)

...If one takes a panoramic view of Hegel’s entire philosophical endeavor, the endeavor to come to grips with and to be committed to reality in the concrete, one is struck by one inescapable idea: the Hegelian enterprise is an extraordinarily unified and grandiose attempt to elaborate one concept, which Hegel sees as the root of all intelligibility, the concept of God, whatever that term is going to turn out to mean.......The question with which we are faced...is neither whether Hegel is (...) correct in what he says nor whether his interpreters are justified in what they say of him. Rather the question is one of finding out just what Hegel does say and of determining what impact that can have on our own thinking.......Why, then, the “Concept of God”? The answer is to be found in the culmination of the entire Hegelian system, “The Philosophy of Absolute Spirit.” Only in the light of “absolute Spirit” is anything Hegel says intelligible....in Hegel’s view, “absolute Spirit” is in fact to be identified with God and that, therefore, only if Hegel’s “Concept of God” is intelligible, will anything Hegel says be intelligible.—From the Introduction. (shrink)

A clear summary of Husserl's often obscure and always complex writings. . . . very instructive.-Ethics.

Suitable for scholars and students new to Hegelian philosophy, this book presents an interpretation and exposition of Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit.

"The most authoritative version of Hegel's "Introduction" to his lectures on the history of philosophy.

"The most authoritative version of Hegel's 'Introduction' to his lectures on the history of philosophy. The translation is a model of its kind."-International Philosophical Quarterly.

Following on part 1 of Howard Kainz's analysis and commentary of Hegel's Phenomenology, published in 1976, the present volume contains what the author calls an "exegesis and interpretation" of chapters 6 to 8. It should be noted that the division of the commentary into two parts is in no way intended to indicate any radical division in Hegel's text. A more significant division within Kainz's text is that between the interpretation, which is original, free, sometimes even fanciful, and the commentary (...) contained in the footnotes, which are both copious and for the most part long. A significant feature of the commentary, incidentally, is that for all quotations from Hegel's text, which with reason are translated rather freely, the original German is given in the footnotes. The headings--both of chapters and of sections within each chapter-are Hegel's own, with subheadings, which may or may not accurately reflect Hegel's thinking. Chapters and major sections are preceded by "introductory remarks." All in all the "analysis" reads more like a guide to reading the Phenomenology--in the way the author reads it--than a careful analysis of Hegel's text. Frequently one suspects that one is being treated to an exposition of Kainz's rather than Hegel's thinking. Kainz is, however, extremely well-read, and his treatment is unquestionably erudite. There are, indeed, significant insights--particularly regarding chapters 6 and 8, but one frequently has the impression that the author is telling us what Hegel ought to have meant, which may well not be what Hegel actually did mean. It is not without value, however, to be confronted with what reading Hegel calls to mind in a scholar like Kainz.--Quentin Lauer, Fordham University. (shrink)

" Notre époque ne veut croire qu'à des "réalités". Or sa réalité la plus puissante est la science, voilà pourquoi c'est de la science philosophique dont notre époque a le plus grand besoin (...) et le plus grand progrès que puisse accomplir notre époque sera de reconnaître que l'intuition philosophique bien comprise est l'appréhension phénoménologique des essences. " Ce texte, écrit en 1911, constitue bien le manifeste par quoi s'ouvre la philosophie du XXè siècle. Husserl cherche à dépasser l'opposition toujours (...) actuelle entre positivisme et historicisme, en exigeant que la philosophie s'établisse à partir d'un nouveau commencement, plus radical que tous ceux qu'elle n'a jamais pu entreprendre, et qu'elle vise une rigueur qui l'affranchisse enfin des modèles hérités des sciences de la nature. Quelle qu'ait été l'histoire de la phénoménologie Husserlienne, l'exigence exprimée dans ce manifeste ne concerne pas seulement un courant de pensée particulier ; elle est consubstantielle à la réflexion philosophique elle-même. (shrink)

This essay interprets Schelling's positive philosophy as an effort to conceive nature as a gift. Schelling ruminated throughout his career on the paradoxical relation between humanity and nature that is expressed in the contemporary term “Anthropocene,” but this essay argues that Schelling's most productive response to this paradox can be found in his reflections on how to receive the gift of nature. After laying out the project of positive philosophy, the essay first explores Schelling's effort to conceive nature as a (...) gift in On the World-Soul, and then considers how this project founders in the First Projection of a System of Nature Philosophy. After the resources of the natural sciences showed themselves to be inadequate to the task of conceiving nature as a gift, Schelling returned to mythology in his late philosophy, and the concluding section of this essay traces how an often overlooked Epicurean strain in Schelling's late philosophy can help us see what is entailed in conceiving nature as a gift. (shrink)

A memoir of J. G. A. Pocock derived from his correspondence with Quentin Skinner between 1965 and 2020. The letters follow the development of Pocock’s career from his early years in New Zealand to his move to the United States in 1966 and his long period of teaching at Johns Hopkins University. Among the topics covered are the gestation and publication of Pocock’s most famous book, The Machiavellian Moment, and the evolution of his six-volume study of Gibbon’s history, Barbarism (...) and Religion. Much new light is also cast on Pocock’s personality, family life, relations with colleagues, and political beliefs. (shrink)

A READING OF HEGEL'S PHENOMENOLOGY OF SPIRIT by Quentin Lauer. Fordham U.P., 1976. vii+303 pp. $20 cloth, $7.50 paper.HEGEL'S PHENOMENOLOGY – A PHILOSOPHICAL INTRODUCTION by Richard Norman. Sussex U.P., 1976. 139 pp. £4 cloth, £2.25 paper.

The aim of this paper is to show that the definition of a possible world in the actualist tradition of A. Plantinga, R.M. Adams, R. Chisholm, J. Pollock and N. Wolterstorff is unable to accomodate tensed states of affairs. An example of a tensed state of affairs is the transiently obtaining state of affairs that the storm is present, which obtains only if its negation, it is not the case that the storm is present also obtains but at different times. (...) A possible world that includes tensed states of affairs and their negations cannot be defined in the traditional way, which states that a possible world is a state of affairs S that includes every state of affairs S' or (exclusive disjunction) the negation of S'. Rather, it must be defined in a new way: A possible world is a state of affairs S that includes every state of affairs S' or (inclusive disjunction) the negation of S', such that for every pair P of mutually contradictory tensed states of affairs entailed by S, the members of P obtain nonsimultaneously in S. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to show that the definition of a possible world in the actualist tradition of A. Plantinga, R.M. Adams, R. Chisholm, J. Pollock and N. Wolterstorff is unable to accomodate tensed states of affairs. An example of a tensed state of affairs is the transiently obtaining state of affairs that the storm is present, which obtains only if its negation, it is not the case that the storm is present also obtains but at different times. (...) A possible world that includes tensed states of affairs and their negations cannot be defined in the traditional way, which states that a possible world is a state of affairs S that includes every state of affairs S' or (exclusive disjunction) the negation of S'. Rather, it must be defined in a new way: A possible world is a state of affairs S that includes every state of affairs S' or (inclusive disjunction) the negation of S', such that for every pair P of mutually contradictory tensed states of affairs entailed by S, the members of P obtain nonsimultaneously in S. (shrink)