About the Phenomenon of Spirit and Art in Science

1807 book past Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

The Phenomenology of Spirit

Writer	Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Original title	Phänomenologie des Geistes
Land	Germany
Linguistic communication	German language
Discipline	Philosophy
Published	1807
Media blazon	Print

The Phenomenology of Spirit (German: Phänomenologie des Geistes) is Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel'southward most widely discussed philosophical work; its German language title can be translated every bit either The Phenomenology of Spirit or The Phenomenology of Mind. Hegel described the work, published in 1807, equally an "exposition of the coming to be of knowledge".^[ane] This is explicated through a necessary self-origination and dissolution of "the diverse shapes of spirit every bit stations on the way through which spirit becomes pure cognition".^[1]

The book marked a significant evolution in German language idealism afterwards Immanuel Kant. Focusing on topics in metaphysics, epistemology, physics, ethics, history, religion, perception, consciousness, and political philosophy, information technology is where Hegel develops his concepts of dialectic (including the master–slave dialectic), absolute idealism, upstanding life, and Aufhebung. Information technology had a profound effect in Western philosophy, and "has been praised and blamed for the evolution of existentialism, communism, fascism, death of God theology, and historicist nihilism".^[2]

Historical context [edit]

Hegel was putting the finishing touches to this book as Napoleon engaged Prussian troops on October 14, 1806, in the Battle of Jena on a plateau outside the city. On the twenty-four hour period before the boxing, Napoleon entered the urban center of Jena. Later that same 24-hour interval, Hegel wrote a alphabetic character to his friend, the theologian Friedrich Immanuel Niethammer:

I saw the Emperor – this globe-soul – riding out of the city on reconnaissance. Information technology is indeed a wonderful sensation to see such an individual, who, concentrated here at a single point, astride a equus caballus, reaches out over the world and masters information technology ... this extraordinary human being, whom information technology is impossible not to admire.^{[ citation needed ]}

In 2000, Terry Pinkard notes that Hegel's comment to Niethammer "is all the more than hit since at that point he had already composed the crucial department of the Phenomenology in which he remarked that the Revolution had at present officially passed to some other land (Germany) that would complete 'in thought' what the Revolution had but partially accomplished in practise."^[three]

Publication history [edit]

The Phenomenology of Spirit was published with the title "System of Science: First Part: The Phenomenology of Spirit".^[4] Some copies independent either "Science of the Experience of Consciousness", or "Science of the Phenomenology of Spirit" as a subtitle between the "Preface" and the "Introduction".^[4] On its initial publication, the work was identified as Part One of a projected "System of Science", which would have independent the Science of Logic "and both the two real sciences of philosophy, the Philosophy of Nature and the Philosophy of Spirit"^[5] every bit its 2d part. The Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences, in its third section (Philosophy of Spirit), contains a second subsection (The Encyclopedia Phenomenology) that recounts in briefer and somewhat altered form the major themes of the original Phenomenology.

Construction [edit]

The book consists of a Preface (written afterward the rest was completed), an Introduction, and six major divisions (of greatly varying size).^[a]

(A) Consciousness is divided into three capacity:
- (I) Sensuous-Certainty,
- (II) Perceiving, and
- (III) Forcefulness and the Understanding.
(B) Self-Consciousness contains one chapter:
- (Iv) The Truth of Self-Certainty which contains a preliminary discussion of Life and Desire, followed by ii subsections: (A) Cocky-Sufficiency and Not-Self-Sufficiency of Self-Consciousness; Mastery and Servitude and (B) Liberty of Self-Consciousness: Stoicism, Skepticism, and the Unhappy Consciousness. Notable is the presence of the word of the dialectic of the lord and bondsman.^{[ to whom? ]}
(C), (AA) Reason contains one chapter:
- (5) The Certainty and Truth of Reason which is divided into three capacity: (A) Observing Reason, (B) The Actualization of Rational Self-Consciousness Through Itself, and (C) Individuality, Which, to Itself, is Real in and for Itself.
(BB) Spirit contains one chapter:
- (VI) Spirit or Geist which is over again divided into 3 chapters: (A) True Spirit, Upstanding Life, (B) Spirit Alienated from Itself: Cultural Germination, and (C) Spirit Certain of Itself: Morality.
(CC) Faith contains ane affiliate:
- (VII) Religion, which is divided into three chapters: (A) Natural Religion, (B) The Art-Religion, and (C) Revealed Organized religion.
(DD) Absolute Knowing contains 1 chapter:
- (8) Absolute Knowing.^[b]

Due to its obscure nature and the many works past Hegel that followed its publication, even the structure or core theme of the book itself remains contested. First, Hegel wrote the book under close time constraints with little gamble for revision (individual chapters were sent to the publisher before others were written). Furthermore, according to some readers, Hegel may have changed his conception of the projection over the grade of the writing. Secondly, the book abounds with both highly technical argument in philosophical language, and concrete examples, either imaginary or historical, of developments by people through different states of consciousness. The relationship between these is disputed: whether Hegel meant to prove claims about the evolution of world history, or simply used it for analogy; whether or non the more than conventionally philosophical passages are meant to address specific historical and philosophical positions; and then forth.

Jean Hyppolite famously interpreted the work as a Bildungsroman that follows the progression of its protagonist, Spirit, through the history of consciousness,^[8] a characterization that remains prevalent among literary theorists. However, others contest this literary estimation and instead read the work as a "self-witting reflective account"^[9] that a guild must requite of itself in order to understand itself and therefore become cogitating. Martin Heidegger saw it as the foundation of a larger "Organization of Science" that Hegel sought to develop,^[10] while Alexandre Kojève saw it as alike to a "Ideal Dialogue ... betwixt the bully Systems of history."^[eleven] It has besides been called "a philosophical roller coaster ... with no more than rhyme or reason for whatever detail transition than that information technology struck Hegel that such a transition might exist fun or illuminating."^[12]

Preface and Introduction [edit]

The Preface [edit]

The Preface to the text is a preamble to the scientific system and noesis in general. Paraphrased "on scientific knowledge" in the table of contents, its intent is to offer a crude idea on scientific cognition, while at the same time aiming "to rid ourselves of a few forms which are only impediments to philosophical knowledge".^[13] As Hegel'south ain announcement noted, it was to explain "what seems to him the need of philosophy in its present state; also about the presumption and mischief of the philosophical formulas that are currently degrading philosophy, and about what is birthday crucial in information technology and its written report".^[14] Information technology tin can thus be seen every bit a heuristic attempt at creating the need of philosophy (in the nowadays state) and of what philosophy itself in its present state needs. This involves an exposition on the content and standpoint of philosophy, i.e, the true shape of truth and the element of its existence, that is interspersed with polemics aimed at the presumption and mischief of philosophical formulas and what distinguishes it from that of any previous philosophy, particularly that of his German Idealist predecessors (Kant, Fichte, and Schelling).^[15]

The Hegelian method consists of actually examining consciousness' feel of both itself and of its objects and eliciting the contradictions and dynamic movement that come to calorie-free in looking at this experience. Hegel uses the phrase "pure looking at" (reines Zusehen) to describe this method. If consciousness just pays attending to what is actually present in itself and its relation to its objects, information technology volition see that what looks like stable and fixed forms dissolve into a dialectical motility. Thus, philosophy, according to Hegel, cannot but fix out arguments based on a flow of deductive reasoning. Rather, information technology must look at actual consciousness, equally it really exists.

Hegel also argues strongly against the epistemological accent of mod philosophy from Descartes through Kant, which he describes equally having to beginning plant the nature and criteria of knowledge prior to actually knowing anything, because this would imply an infinite regress, a foundationalism that Hegel maintains is self-contradictory and impossible. Rather, he maintains, we must examine actual knowing as it occurs in real knowledge processes. This is why Hegel uses the term "phenomenology". "Phenomenology" comes from the Greek discussion for "to announced", and the phenomenology of mind is thus the study of how consciousness or listen appears to itself. In Hegel'due south dynamic arrangement, it is the report of the successive appearances of the heed to itself, because on examination each 1 dissolves into a later, more than comprehensive and integrated form or structure of mind.

Introduction [edit]

Whereas the Preface was written later Hegel completed the Phenomenology, the Introduction was written beforehand. It covers much of the same footing, but from a somewhat different perspective.

In the Introduction, Hegel addresses the seeming paradox that we cannot evaluate our kinesthesia of noesis in terms of its ability to know the Absolute without showtime having a benchmark for what the Absolute is, one that is superior to our knowledge of the Accented. Yet, we could only accept such a criterion if nosotros already had the improved noesis that we seek.

To resolve this paradox, Hegel adopts a method whereby the knowing that is characteristic of a particular stage of consciousness is evaluated using the criterion presupposed past consciousness itself. At each stage, consciousness knows something, and at the aforementioned time distinguishes the object of that knowledge as dissimilar from what it knows. Hegel and his readers will only "look on" while consciousness compares its actual knowledge of the object—what the object is "for consciousness"—with its criterion for what the object must exist "in itself". One would expect that, when consciousness finds that its cognition does not concord with its object, consciousness would suit its knowledge to arrange to its object. However, in a feature reversal, Hegel explains that under his method, the opposite occurs.

As simply noted, consciousness' criterion for what the object should exist is not supplied externally but rather by consciousness itself. Therefore, like its knowledge, the "object" that consciousness distinguishes from its knowledge is really merely the object "for consciousness"—it is the object as envisioned by that stage of consciousness. Thus, in attempting to resolve the discord betwixt knowledge and object, consciousness inevitably alters the object every bit well. In fact, the new "object" for consciousness is developed from consciousness' inadequate knowledge of the previous "object". Thus, what consciousness really does is to modify its "object" to conform to its knowledge. Then the wheel begins afresh every bit consciousness attempts to examine what it knows about this new "object".

The reason for this reversal is that, for Hegel, the separation between consciousness and its object is no more real than consciousness' inadequate knowledge of that object. The noesis is inadequate only because of that separation. At the end of the process, when the object has been fully "spiritualized" by successive cycles of consciousness' feel, consciousness volition fully know the object and at the aforementioned time fully recognize that the object is none other than itself.

At each stage of evolution, Hegel, adds, "we" (Hegel and his readers) see this development of the new object out of the knowledge of the previous one, but the consciousness that we are observing does not. As far as it is concerned, it experiences the dissolution of its knowledge in a mass of contradictions, and the emergence of a new object for noesis, without agreement how that new object has been born.

Important Concepts [edit]

Hegelian dialectic [edit]

The famous dialectical process of thesis–antithesis–synthesis has been controversially attributed to Hegel.

Whoever looks for the stereotype of the allegedly Hegelian dialectic in Hegel'south Phenomenology volition non observe it. What one does observe on looking at the table of contents is a very decided preference for triadic arrangements. ... Simply these many triads are not presented or deduced by Hegel as then many theses, antitheses, and syntheses. It is not by means of any dialectic of that sort that his idea moves upwards the ladder to absolute cognition.

— Walter Kaufmann (1965). Hegel. Reinterpretation, Texts, and Commentary. p. 168.

Regardless of (ongoing) academic controversy regarding the significance of a unique dialectical method in Hegel's writings, it is true, equally Professor Howard Kainz (1996) affirms, that there are "thousands of triads" in Hegel's writings. Importantly, instead of using the famous terminology that originated with Kant and was elaborated by J. One thousand. Fichte, Hegel used an entirely dissimilar and more accurate terminology for dialectical (or as Hegel chosen them, "speculative") triads.

Hegel used 2 different sets of terms for his triads, namely, "abstruse–negative–concrete" (specially in his Phenomenology of 1807), also equally "firsthand–mediate–concrete" (especially in his Scientific discipline of Logic of 1812), depending on the telescopic of his argumentation.

When one looks for these terms in his writings, i finds and so many occurrences that it may get clear that Hegel employed the Kantian using a different terminology.

Hegel explained his change of terminology. The triad terms "abstract–negative–concrete" contain an implicit explanation for the flaws in Kant's terms. The first term, "thesis", deserves its anti-thesis but because information technology is too abstract. The third term, "synthesis", has completed the triad, making information technology concrete and no longer abstract by absorbing the negative.

Sometimes Hegel used the terms "immediate–mediate–concrete, to draw his triads. The near abstruse concepts are those that nowadays themselves to our consciousness immediately. For instance, the notion of Pure Being for Hegel was the most abstract concept of all. The negative of this infinite brainchild would require an entire Encyclopedia, building category by category, dialectically, until it culminated in the category of Absolute Mind or Spirit (since the German word Geist can mean either 'listen' or 'spirit').

Unfolding of species [edit]

Hegel describes a sequential progression from inanimate objects to animate creatures to human beings. This is frequently compared to Charles Darwin's evolutionary theory. However, unlike Darwin, Hegel thought that organisms had agency in choosing to develop along this progression by collaborating with other organisms.^[sixteen] ^[17] Hegel understood this to be a linear process of natural evolution with a predetermined end. He viewed this finish teleologically every bit its ultimate purpose and destiny.^[16] ^[18] ^[nineteen]

Criticism [edit]

Arthur Schopenhauer criticized Phenomenology of Spirit as being characteristic of the vacuous verbiage he attributed to Hegel: "I practise not think that it is difficult to see that whoever puts forrard annihilation similar this is a shameless charlatan who wants to fool simpletons and observes that he has found his people in the Germans of the nineteenth century."^[xx] ^{[ page needed ]}

Walter Kaufmann, on the question of organisation, argued that Hegel's arrangement, "over half a century before Darwin published his Origin of Species and impressed the idea of development on almost everybody's listen, was developmental."^[21] The idea is supremely suggestive but, in the cease, untenable according to Kaufmann: "The thought of arranging all significant points of view in such a single sequence, on a ladder that reaches from the crudest to the near mature, is as dazzling to contemplate as information technology is mad to try seriously to implement it".^[22] While Kaufmann viewed Hegel equally right in seeing that the style a view is reached is not necessarily external to the view itself, since, on the opposite, a cognition of the development, including the prior positions through which a human being passed before adopting a position may make all the departure when it comes to comprehending his or her position, some aspects of the conception are nevertheless somewhat absurd and some of the details bizarre.^[23] Kaufmann also remarks that the very table of contents of the Phenomenology may be said to "mirror defoliation" and that "faults are so like shooting fish in a barrel to find in information technology that it is non worth while to adduce heaps of them."^{[ citation needed ]} Still, he excuses Hegel since he understands that the author of the Phenomenology "finished the book under an immense strain".^[24]

Referencing [edit]

The piece of work is usually abbreviated as PdG (Phänomenologie des Geistes), followed by the pagination or paragraph number of the German original edition. It is also abbreviated as PS (The Phenomenology of Spirit) or equally PM (The Phenomenology of Heed), followed by the pagination or paragraph number of the English language translation used past each author.

English translations [edit]

G. Westward. F. Hegel: The Phenomenology of Spirit, translated past Peter Fuss and John Dobbins (University of Notre Matriarch Press, 2019)
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel: The Phenomenology of Spirit (Cambridge Hegel Translations), translated past Terry Pinkard (Cambridge University Press, 2018) ISBN 0-52185579-9
Hegel: The Phenomenology of Spirit: Translated with introduction and commentary, translated by Michael Inwood (Oxford University Press, 2018) ISBN 0-19879062-7
Phenomenology of Spirit, translated by A. 5. Miller with assay of the text and foreword by J. North. Findlay (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977) ISBN 0-19824597-1
Phenomenology of Mind, translated by J. B. Baillie (London: Harper & Row, 1967)
Hegel's Preface to the Phenomenology of Spirit, translated with introduction, running commentary and notes by Yirmiyahu Yovel (Princeton: Princeton Academy Press, 2004) ISBN 0-69112052-8.
Texts and Commentary: Hegel's Preface to His System in a New Translation With Commentary on Facing Pages, and "Who Thinks Abstractly?", translated by Walter Kaufmann (South Bend: University of Notre Dame Press, 1977) ISBN 0-26801069-2.
"Introduction", "The Phenomenology of Spirit", translated by Kenley R. Dove, in Martin Heidegger, "Hegel's Concept of Experience" (New York: Harper & Row, 1970)
"Sense-Certainty", Chapter I, "The Phenomenology of Spirit", translated past Kenley R. Dove, "The Philosophical Forum", Vol. 32, No 4
"Stoicism", Affiliate Iv, B, "The Phenomenology of Spirit", translated by Kenley R. Dove, "The Philosophical Forum", Vol. 37, No iii
"Absolute Knowing", Affiliate 8, "The Phenomenology of Spirit", translated by Kenley R. Dove, "The Philosophical Forum", Vol. 32, No four
Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit: Selections Translated and Annotated by Howard P. Kainz. The Pennsylvania State University Press. ISBN 0-27101076-2
Phenomenology of Spirit selections translated past Andrea Tschemplik and James H. Stam, in Steven 1000. Cahn, ed., Classics of Western Philosophy (Hackett, 2007)
Hegel's Phenomenology of Self-consciousness: text and commentary [A translation of Chapter IV of the Phenomenology, with accompanying essays and a translation of "Hegel'southward summary of cocky-consciousness from 'The Phenomenology of Spirit' in the Philosophical Propaedeutic"], by Leo Rauch and David Sherman. State Academy of New York Press, 1999.

Run into too [edit]

Process theology
Sittlichkeit
The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology
Weltgeist
De divisione naturae

Notes [edit]

^ The following table of contents follows the Pinkard Translation.^[6] Some versions of the book'south table of contents as well group the last four together as a single section on a level with the first 2.
^ "Absolute Knowing," for Hegel, is not to be confused with foundational knowledge, which is oxymoronic in Hegelian philosophy, instead, the Absolute is an endpoint of History, "spirit knowing itself equally spirit" ^[seven]

Citations [edit]

^ ^a ^b Hegel 2018, p. 468, Appendix.
^ Pinkard 1996, p. ii.
^ Pinkard 2000, p. 228–9. sfn fault: no target: CITEREFPinkard2000 (help)
^ ^a ^b Hegel 2018, p. xvi.
^ Hegel 2015, p. 21.nine.
^ Hegel 2018.
^ Hegel 2018, p. 467, §807.
^ Hyppolite 1979, p. 11–12.
^ Pinkard 1996, p. 8.
^ Heidegger, Martin, Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit.
^ Kojève, Alexandre, Introduction to the Reading of Hegel, § 1.
^ Pinkard 1996, p. 2.
^ Hegel 2018, p. 12, §16.
^ Harris 1997, p. 30.
^ Hegel 2018, p. half dozen, §6.
^ ^a ^b Solomon 1985, p. 233.
^ Lawler 2014, p. 139.
^ Rorty 1998, p. 300.
^ Magee 2010, p. 86.
^ Schopenhauer 1974. sfn error: no target: CITEREFSchopenhauer1974 (assist)
^ Kaufmann 1965, p. 148.
^ Kaufmann 1965, p. 149.
^ Kaufmann 1965, p. 149.
^ Kaufmann 1965, p. 152.

References [edit]

Principal [edit]

Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich (2018) [1807]. The phenomenology of spirit. Cambridge Hegel Translations. Translated by Pinkard, Terry. Cambridge: Cambridge Academy Printing. ISBN9781139050494.
Thou. W. Hegel (2015). Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel: The Science of Logic

Secondary [edit]

Lawler, James (2014). "Affiliate eight: They're Not Simply Goddamn Trees: Hegel'south Philosophy of Nature and the Avatar of Spirit". In Dunn, G.A.; Irwin, West. (eds.). Avatar and Philosophy: Learning to See. The Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Civilization Series. Wiley. pp. 104–114. ISBN978-1-118-88676-two. {{cite book}}: CS1 maint: date and yr (link)
H. S. Harris (1997). Hegel's Ladder (Vol 1 & 2)
Hyppolite, Jean (1979) [1974]. Genesis and Structure of Hegel'south "Phenomenology of Spirit". John Heckman, Samuel Cherniak (trans.) (reprint ed.). Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press. ISBN0-81010594-2.
Kaufmann, Walter Arnold (1965). Hegel. Reinterpretation, Texts, and Commentary. New York Metropolis: Doubleday.
Magee, Chiliad.A. (2010). "Evolution". The Hegel Dictionary. Bloomsbury Philosophy Dictionaries. Bloomsbury Bookish. ISBN978-1-847-06591-nine.
Pinkard, Terry (1996). Hegel'southward Phenomenology. The Sociality of Reason. Cambridge University Press. ISBN978-0-521-56834-0.
Pinkard, Terry (2001) [2000]. Hegel. A Biography. Cambridge University Printing. ISBN978-0-521-00387-2.
Rorty, R. (1998). Truth and Progress: Philosophical Papers. Philosophical papers. Cambridge University Press. ISBN978-0-521-55686-6.
Russon, John Edward (2004). Reading Hegel's Phenomenology. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana Academy Press. ISBN978-0-253-21692-2.
Schopenhauer, Arthur (1974). "Sketch of a History of the Doctrine of the Ideal and the Real, Appendix". Parerga and Paralipomena, Volume 1. Oxford: Clarendon Printing. ISBN0-19824508-4.
Solomon, R.C. (1985). In the Spirit of Hegel. Oxford University Printing. ISBN978-0-195-36512-ii.

External links [edit]

Electronic versions of the English language translation of Hegel'south Phenomenology of Mind are available at:

Marxists Internet Archive: Hegel'due south Phenomenology of Listen
Translating Hegel blog, including a running translation of the Preface to the Phenomenology of Spirit
Phenomenology of Spirit. Bilingual, with Dictionary
The Phenomenology of Mind public domain audiobook at LibriVox

Detailed audio commentary by an academic:

The Bernstein Tapes: Hegel's Phenomenology of Mind
Gregory Sadler, Half Hour Hegel: The Complete Phenomenology of Spirit on YouTube

adamssuarry.blogspot.com

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Phenomenology_of_Spirit