Phenomenology of Spirit

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Hegel's work Phänomenologie des Geistes (1807) is called The Phenomenology of Spirit or The Phenomenology of Mind in English; the German word Geist has connotations of both spirit and mind in English. It is one of Hegel's most important philosophical works; he himself regarded it as the foundation of his later works. Roughly taking the form of a Bildungsroman, it explores the nature and development of its protagonist--mind/spirit--showing how it evolves through a process of internal contradiction and development from the most primitive aspect of sense-perception through all of the forms of subjective and objective mind, including art, religion, and philosophy, to absolute knowledge that comprehends this entire developmental process as part of itself. Thus it also lays out an entire system of metaphysics, ethics, and political philosophy.

1 The Preface
2 Lordship and Bondage
3 Contents
4 English Translations of the Phenomenology of Spirit
5 External links

[edit] The Preface

The Preface to the Phenomenology, all by itself, is considered one of Hegel's major works and a major text in the history of philosophy, because in it he sets out the core of his philosophical method and what distinguishes it from that of any previous philosophy, especially that of his German Idealist predecessors (Kant, Fichte, and Schelling). This Hegelian method consists of actually examining consciousness' experience of both itself and of its objects and eliciting the contradictions and dynamic movement that come to light in looking at this experience. Hegel uses the phrase "pure looking at" (reines Zusehen) to describe this method. If consciousness just pays attention to what is actually present in itself and its relation to its objects, it will see that what looks like stable and fixed forms dissolve into a dialectical movement. Thus philosophy, according to Hegel, cannot just set out arguments based on a flow of deductive reasoning. Rather, it must look at actual consciousness, as it really exists. Hegel also argues strongly against the epistemological emphasis of modern philosophy from Descartes through Kant, which he describes as having to first establish 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 word for "to appear", and the phenomenology of mind is thus the study of how consciousness or mind appears to itself. In Hegel's dynamic system, it is the study of the successive appearances of the mind to itself, because on examination each one dissolves into a later, more comprehensive and integrated form or structure of mind.

[edit] Lordship and Bondage

Main article: Master-slave dialectic

One of the most influential sections of the book is the discussion of the dialectic of the lord and the bondsman. To become self-conscious every man must engage in a life-death struggle. Although subjugated, the bondsman through his mortal fear attains self-consciousness.

[edit] Contents

Preface: On Scientific Cognition

Introduction

A. Consciousness

I. Sense-certainty

II. Perception

III. Force and the Understanding

B. Self-consciousness

IV. The Truth of Self-certainty

A. Independence and dependence of self-consciousness: lordship and bondage.

B. Freedom of self-consciousness: stoicism, scepticism, and the unhappy consciousness.

C. (AA.) Reason

V. The Certainty and Truth of Reason

A. Observing reason

B. The actualization of rational self-consciousness through its own activity.

C. Individuality which takes itself to be real in and for itself.

(BB.) Spirit

VI. Spirit

A. The true Spirit. The ethical order.

B. Self-alienated Spirit. Culture.

C. Spirit that is certain of itself. Morality.

(CC.) Religion

VII. Religion

A. Natural religion

B. Religion in the form of art.

C. The revealed religion.

(DD.) Absolute Knowing

VIII. Absolute Knowing.

[edit] English Translations of the Phenomenology of Spirit

G.W.F. Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit, translated by A.V. Miller with analysis of the text and foreword by J. N. Findlay (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977) ISBN 0-19-824597-1.

G. W. F. Hegel, Preface to the "Phenomenology of Spirit", translated by Yirmiyahu Yovel (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004) ISBN 0-691-12052-8.

G. W. F. Hegel, 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 0-268-01069-2.

G. W. F. Hegel, "Introduction", "The Phenomenology of Spirit", translated by Kenley R. Dove, in Martin Heidegger, "Hegel's Concept of Experience" (New York: Harper & Row, 1970)

G. W. F. Hegel, "Sense-Certainty", Chapter I, "The Phenomenology of Spirit", translated by Kenley R. Dove, "The Philosophical Forum", Vol. 32, No. 4.

G. W. F. Hegel, "Stoicism", Chapter IV, B, "The Phenomenology of Spirit", translated by Kenley R. Dove, "The Philosophical Forum", Vol. 37, No 3.

G. W. F. Hegel, "Absolute Knowing", Chapter VIII, "The Phenomenology of Spirit", translated by Kenley R. Dove, "The Philosophical Forum", Vol. 32, No. 4.