Talk:Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

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Contents 1 should be expanded .. 2 Much Work Needed on Hegel's Major Works 3 Who has an idea of Hegel's writings ? 4 Hegel and Nietzsche 5 Francis Fukuyama 6 Question of Racism and Slavery 7 Correction on "Left Hegelians" 8 Removed: POV criticisms of Hegel 9 Hegel's meaning... 10 The word "contemporary" 11 Optimum World Soul 12 Request for clarification 13 Revised introduction 14 Problem with the Hegel quotes 15 Hegel's legacy (interpretation) 16 Hegel's mediation, anyone? 17 publication dates 18 Peculiar early work 19 A remark on a statement 20 mentioning analytic philosophy 21 Advocates section 22 Perhaps a simple text error. Perhaps not? 23 Infobox 24 Hermetic Hegel 25 request for help from Hegel experts 26 intro 27 The Scary picture 28 Synonyms 29 controversial commentary removed 30 Philophia? 31 Hegel Introduction 32 Hegel's Secret 33 Blatant Marx bias 34 "Detractors" Section - Removed Statement 35 Portait 36 Hegel shouldn't be categorized as Logician 37 Influences and Influenced 38 Bot edit war? 39 Incorrect reference to Spinoza? 40 Schopenhauer and Hegel in love??? 41 Hegel's Absolute 42 Whim 43 Balance section

[edit] should be expanded ..

an extra-article about "Hegelianism" is reasonable, considering that the whole USA is based on that principle

Hi, I've created an article on the Hegelian principle, fyi.

[edit] Much Work Needed on Hegel's Major Works

"I've added my most recent edit in order to bring better light to Hegel's major works on Wikipedia. I'll be writing an article on Encyclopaedia III: Philosophy of Mind sometime later this week, so I thought the division of the Encyclopaedia here was an appropriate move."

If anybody would like to collaborate in writing the Philosophy of Mind (Hegel) article, it would be much appreciated! Let me know on the talk page, or respond to me here. Thank you! CriminalSaint 18:52, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Dear CriminalSaint,

"I've added my most recent edit in order to bring better light to Hegel's major works"

Forget about the to "bring better light to Hegel". You should better try to bring "a first light to Hegel's German's writings" in the first way. Once you have done so, then I will be willing to answer your next contribution to this Hegel question. (Read the _old and dead_ Popper, then _think_ a lot, then answer to my posting.)

From Kai (hegel.net editor) to the anoymous poster above:

If you think that Popper gives an adequate/fair critque of Hegel, have a look at the very famous counter critique of Walter Kaufmann, online at http://hegel.net/en/kaufmann1959.htm . You may want to rethink your judgment after that.

Hans Rosenthal (hans.rosenthal AT t-online.de -- replace AT by @ )

I'm unable to read German, I'm afraid. I'm relying (in the case of Encyclopaedia III) on the translation presented by Wallace, as I understand it, typically considered the best available. Regardless; the article on Hegel needs work beyond just the german originals; Hegel's work is a phenomenon in philosophy beyond any given language. CriminalSaint 07:36, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

To Kai (hegel.net editor). Are you really the English Wikipedia Hegel admin ?

"to the anoymous poster above:"

This comment seems to be addressed to me. Keep in mind that I do never send a posting without my full name and E-mai address to the wiki talk pages, since I do not want to be _anonymous_.

By the way, my complete name and E-mai address just follows your latest posting.

And here -- for you alone -- exclusively follows my name and E-mai address:

Hans Rosenthal (hans.rosenthal AT t-online.de -- replace AT by @ )

PS: I'm waiting for _substantial contributions_ on Hegel from your address.

PPS: "Hegel's work is a phenomenon in philosophy beyond any given language." OK, then teach me an "ungiven language" so that I can understand Hegel's (and your) writings. Thank you.

You're misinterpreting me. Hegel is Hegel whether he's in english of german. CriminalSaint 22:30, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Who has an idea of Hegel's writings ?

May I allow to ask who of the contibutors to this Wiki talk page have ever read Hegel's works ? And among those who read Hegel's works, which ones read his works in the original German language ? I did, like Schopenhauer, read his works, and did read his "Phänomenologie des Geistes" in the original language more than one time. Like Schopenhauer, I can only state that this (and not this work alone) gives the reader the feeling of being in a madhouse of the German language and the spirit of philosophy. usf. usf. usf. [und so fort = and so forth] (One of Hegel's most favourite abbreviations.) Hans Rosenthal (hans.rosenthal AT t-online.de -- replace AT by @ )

I've read all of Hegel's works that have been translated into English. My masters thesis was on Hegel's PHENOMENOLOGY OF SPIRIT. I doubt that it's necessary to read Hegel in the original German to grasp his main ideas. His work on Spirit, Dialectic, Speculation, his critique of Kant's Unknowable Thing-in-itself, and his dialectical improvement of Anselm's Ontological Proof are innovations we haven't seen since the days of Aristotle or after Hegel. Petrejo 04:58, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

How could you write your masters thesis on Hegel's most famous work "Phänomologie des Geistes" without having studied it in its original language ? I am astonished and somehow shocked. Not even Schopenhauher, neither Goethe did anderstand what Hegel wrote in their mother tongue. I do neither. You write: "My masters thesis was on Hegel's PHENOMENOLOGY OF SPIRIT." -- So your masters thesis was written on a translation. Why did you not write your "masters thesis" on the original of Hegel's work "Phänomologie des Geistes" ? Was it simple laziness to learn the German (Hegel's) language ? Hans Rosenthal (ROHA) (hans.rosenthal AT t-online.de -- replace AT by @ ) (17112006) PS Please do never claim that you understood Hegel's philosophiy by a whatever so qualified translation German --> English

I have read Hegel in the original. If you feel like you are in a madhouse of the German language when you read Hegel, I suggest that you emigrate to America. Your remark suggests that you would be more comfortable with the alternative reality of Bush's America, with Bush's down-to-earth use of the English language. Bush, if he ever bothered to read philosophy, and Hegel in particular, would find it to be a madhouse, too. Hyperion 05:45, 23 Feb 2005 (UTC)

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Please be aware of the fact that the present administration in the U.S. is "der Gang Gottes in der Welt." Please use Intuitive Reason to comprehend this. 152.163.100.8 16:52, 9 September 2005 (UTC)Bruce Partington

---

Hyperion's attempt to criticize President Bush is a typical example of someone who cannot properly respond to the accusation that Hegel's writings seem to be the work of an insane person. Bush has nothing to do with Hegel's writings. Criticism of America is not relevant to Hegel's style of writing. The use of words like "alternative reality" merely make it more difficult to discuss Hegel's obscurity and illogicality. Besides, as is said above, if Hegel is correct, then Bush's America is God's way of proceeding in the world (der Gang Gottes in der Welt). Hegel: "Whatever is, is right."Lestrade 15:42, 20 June 2007 (UTC)Lestrade

Dear Hyperion,

"Your remark suggests that you would be more comfortable with the alternative reality of Bush's America,..."

Where did you draw this conclusion from ? And how did you draw it ? Did you draw it from my comment ? Where and how did you draw it fom there ? I am not talking about any current political issues, I am talking about the "philosopher" G. W. F. Hegel and his so-called "philosophy". Have I missed something important here ? Have you missed something ? I am not sure that you have read Hegel in the original language. But I may be wrong. If you have read Hegel (not only 100 lines from the Web, but 10,000 lines from the printed books) in the German language, then please let me and all of the other readers know of what you think is the most important contribution from Hegel to philosophy.

I am looking forward to your answer -- and will answer it, no doubt.

Hans Rosenthal (hans.rosenthal AT t-online.de -- replace AT by @ )

It is hard to say what Hegel's most important contribution to philosophy is, since he made contributions in so many different fields, each of which is important in its own right. But let's take that most fundamental field of philosophy, epistemology. Hegel solved the Problem of the Criterion posed by Sextus Empiricus. This problem is to establish a criterion for philosophical assessment or justification without dogmatism, question begging, or vicious circularity. The way Hegel solves this problem is by surveying in his Phänomenologie des Geistes the various epistemological positions that have emerged throughout the course of the history of philosophy, subjecting them to internal critique, and arguing through a process of elimination that his philosophical position is the sole tenable one.

In the period roughly 1960-1980, Anglophone philosophers became increasingly aware of the problems with empiricism, and turned to Kant to find a way out. Since then they, most notably John McDowell and Robert Brandom, have turned to Hegel, to avoid the dilemmas that Kant's philosophy, with its transcendental idealism, leads to. Thus Anglophone philosophy is currently in the process of returning Hegel to his rightful place at the center of the European philosophical tradition, a fact of which many Germans, perhaps through the bizzarely enduring influence of Popper in that country, remain unaware.

By solving the Problem of the Criterion, Hegel completed the philosophical work of the Enlightenment, since solving the problem gives one rational reasons for holding particular values. The reason I compare you to Bush is that Bush and his "conservative" American followers reject the Enlightenment, and hence rationality. By rejecting Hegel, you reject the possibility of justifying values through reason rather than naked power and violence, and hence in effect end up in Bush's camp. -- Hyperion 07:06, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Dear Hyperion,

As _for the moment_, I would like you to give your own interpretation for the following statements from Hegel. (I excuse to all readers who are not familliar with the German language, but you can trust me that even a native German like me can not make any sense out of what Hegel is saying. He seems to be talking about "Sound" and "Matter".)

Hegel on Sound (original German: Klang):

"Der Klang ist der Wechsel des spezifischen Auseinanderseins der materiellen Teile und des Negiertseins derselben; nur abstrakte und sozusagen ideelle Idealität dieses Spezifischen. Aber dieser Wechsel ist hiermit selbst unmittelbar die Negation des materiellen spezifischen Bestehens; dieses ist damit ideale Idealität der spezifischen Schwere und Kohäsionswärme."

Hegel on Matter (original German: Materie):

"Die Materie hält sich gegen ihre Identität mit sich, durch das Moment ihrer Negativität, ihrer abstrakten Vereinzelung, auseinander; die Repulsion der Materie. Ebenso wesentlich ist, weil diese Verschiedenen ein und dasselbe sind, die negative Einheit dieses außereinanderseienden Fürsichseins; die Materie ist somit kontinuierlich, - ihre Attraktion. Die Materie ist untrennbar beides und negative Einheit dieser Momente, Einzelheit, aber als gegen das unmittelbare Außereinander der Materie noch unterschieden und darum selbst noch nicht als materiell gesetzt, ideelle Einzelheit, Mittelpunkt, - die Schwere."

[Hegel wrote these lines many years after the death of Sir Isaac Newton in 1727 !]

These quotes, which are correct, are taken from:

http://www.skeptischeecke.de/Worterbuch/Kalte_Fusion/Hegelei/hegelei.html

Please have a look and a _thinking_, before you come up with another "Hegelei".

This, however, is not the answer that I promised you -- this one follows later. This is only meant to be a _test_ of your understanding of the German language.

Hans Rosenthal (hans.rosenthal AT t-online.de -- replace AT by @ )

Dear "Hans",

I don't understand why you aren't able to grasp these sentences from the "Enzyklopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaften im Grundrisse". Maybe you should re-read the Logic part; it seems you didn't get the principal idea of speculative logic, that a Begriff (concept) is determined by its identity and its difference (opposite) at the same time.

Your other problem may be that you seem to mean that Hegel is formulating a normal physical theory. This is of course a senseless misunderstanding as every Kant student would realize: We have here a transcendental analysis and deduction of Begriffe (concepts) that are used to formulate a single theory. If you have problems to understand this, you should re-read the "Kritik der reinen Vernunft".

Now: Matter (Materie) is the state of a Begriff (concept, idea) in its Außer-Sich-Sein (meaning having it's real as ideal identity out of itself). Therefore you have

space: extension of one and the same Begriff (f.e. galaxy) as objects who seem to have no direct link (f.e. stars) im "Nebeneinander" (in Kantian terminology), and

time: extension of and realization of the unity of these just seemingly unlinked objects im "Nacheinander" (sorry for using Kantian terminology, but you obviously aren't ready for Hegel).

The concept of this process is analyzed in the quote and named "Schwere" (massiness, gravity). Maybe it's easier for you to begin with the concrete Begriff: Galaxy. A galaxy is a quantity of suns with a center where all suns are moving to. Now, where is the problem to realize how even a child (and of course Newton) uses Hegels Begriffe of Schwere to construct this concept in his mind?

If you still have questions, feel free to ask. We all started as ignorants.

Greetings,

Jan.

25. 2. 2006 n.Chr. (5:00 CET am)

Dear Hans (to myself),

"Die Materie hält sich gegen ihre Identität mit sich, durch das Moment ihrer Negativität, ihrer abstrakten Vereinzelung, auseinander; die Repulsion der Materie. Ebenso wesentlich ist, weil diese Verschiedenen ein und dasselbe sind, die negative Einheit dieses außereinanderseienden Fürsichseins; die Materie ist somit kontinuierlich, - ihre Attraktion. Die Materie ist untrennbar beides und negative Einheit dieser Momente, Einzelheit, aber als gegen das unmittelbare Außereinander der Materie noch unterschieden und darum selbst noch nicht als materiell gesetzt, ideelle Einzelheit, Mittelpunkt, - die Schwere."

"die Materie ist somit kontinuierlich", "ideelle Einzelheit, Mittelpunkt, - die Schwere."

This sounds like the "Allgemeine Relativitätstheorie". I have to think deeper into this.

Hans Rosenthal (hans.rosenthal AT t-online.de -- replace AT by @ )

PS: Hyperion and nobody else needs to answer to this posting. It's out of the range.

This post is indeed "out of the range". The Wikipedia talk forums are intended for discussion of how one should proceed with the corresponding Wikipedia article, not as a place for individuals to place queries as a means for their education or entertainment. Since you do not seem to derive much benefit from reading philosophy in the form of primary sources (which you need not feel too badly about in the case of Hegel, since he is a difficult philosopher), I would suggest that you look at some of the fine secondary literature that exists in both German and English.

Even better, why don't you take a philosophy course or two? You seem to have little or no philosophical training, since otherwise you would know that taking one or two quotes which are inscrutable out of context as "proof" that a philosopher is spouting nonsense (as Carnap famously quoted Heidegger's "Nihilation is neither an annihilation of what-is, nor does it spring from negation.... Nothing annihilates itself") is no longer considered to be a valid form of philosophical "argumentation", but merely demonstrates the ignorance and Sturheit of the person giving the quotation. -- Hyperion 15:08, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Vorläufige Antwort auf (a preliminary answer to) Hyperion in Wiki Talk Page zu Hegel:

(A bit English, a bit German -- sorry.)

Das ist Schaumschlägerei (um nicht zu sagen: Hegelei).

(Böse/persönliche Erwiderung auf Hyperions erste Antwort; "I have read Hegel in the original." Reading a chain of German Hegel words is easy. The problem is to make sense out of the chain.)

1.) Er mißversteht meine Hegel-Zitate als "Beweis" für Hegels Unsinn. Dabei hat er meinen Hinweis ignoriert, daß diese als _Test_ für seine deutschen Sprachkenntnisse gedacht sind. (Siehe letzten Satz meiner ersten Antwort!)

2.) In seiner Antwort verwendet Hyperion gegen mich das sogenannte "Argument gegen den Mann": siehe hierzu W. C. Salmon, Logik, 191ff.

Siehe hierzu auch: http://wiki.cotch.net/index.php/Attacking_the_Person "Explanation: Attacking the Person is any argument that, instead of dealing with an

argument, attacks the person making the argument."

http://www.mgmtguru.com/mgt301/301_Lecture4Page1.htm "Argumentum Ad Hominem ("argument against the man")- Attacking a person's character

instead of the content of that person's argument detracts from the business of analyzing

the argument. For example, "Bob is an alcoholic, so don't take his investment advice too

seriously." "Of course Jones would argue against lowering prices, he is in sales, after

all." The character of someone is information you might want to consider, but it has

nothing to do with the reasonableness of what the person says. For this, we must

critically examine what is stated."

http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/content/BPL_Images/Content_store/Sample_chapter/0631228

73X/001-037.pdf Datei 001-037.pdf auf meinem Desktop. http://www.uvsc.edu/owl/handouts/revised%20handouts/content%20and%20organization/fallacies

.pdf Datei fallacies.pdf auf meinem Desktop. Diesen Artikel sollte ich Hyperion zur Lektüre empfehlen!

3.) Zum zweiten Satz von Hyperion ("The Wikipedia talk forums are intended...") verweise ich auf http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Talk_page Datei Wikipedia Talk_page.htm auf meinem Desktop. "What is it used for? On Wikipedia, the purpose of a talk page is to help to improve the

contents of the main page, from an encyclopedic point of view. Questions, challenges,

excised text (due to truly egregious confusion or bias, for example), arguments relevant

to changing the text, and commentary on the main page are all fair play."

Eine _harte_, aber nicht persönlich gefärbte Antwort wird folgen. Do never attack the person, even if the person attacks you.

Hans Rosenthal (hans.rosenthal AT t-online.de -- replace AT by @ )

PS: Bitte erst _genau_ lesen, dann _klar_ denken und überlegen, dann _sober_ schreiben. Damit wäre ich ganz zufrieden.

PPS: However, if you ever would like to get an insight into what _philosophy_ means, then I can only recommend to read one or the other book from the _philosopher_ John Leslie Mackie: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._L._Mackie This reading will _clean_ your mind and _open_ it to what deserves the name of "philosophy".

---

Protogonus1, you might have noticed that I've stripped down your articles about Hegel to, well, a bare minimum. I suspect you don't quite understand what we're up to here on Wikipedia. A paean to your favorite philosopher, written in his own style, is out of place--we want encyclopedia articles.

...now recognized as a laborious, exacting, and successful completion of Aristotle’s valiant attempt...

I (just for example) don't recognize it as such, nor do most philosophers. I admittedly don't know much about Hegel (except the simplest of catchphrases and that he's very hard to read :-) ), but I've never heard him compared to Aristotle. In any event, the above is not written from the neutral point of view, which is why I removed it.

Informed Wikipedians recognize ruefully that the true encyclopedia is not organized from “A” to “Z” but instead moves in majestic consideration first of its own cognitive tools (the nature of Thought itself as True Being), then in search of the truth behind the often misleading appearances (the nature of Nature), and finally applies the concrete knowledge of Being and Nature to recognize, reconcile, and reform itself in and through the world of the Mind, which is now, after a Titanic struggle with and victory over its opposite, fully possessed of its own eternal reality.

I don't think it's a good idea to refer to Wikipedia in most articles--certainly not, anyway, in an article about Hegel. It's interesting that I know as much about Wikipedia as anybody, but I don't understand the above paragraph!

Hegel’s particular contribution was to modify the form of the eternally True Philosophy or Wissenschaft to make it infinitely expandable (the parts remaining always in systematic/organic relation) and to illustrate its stupendous heuristic power in the service of Man. Note also the pertinent truism of the Germans in this regard: “There is nothing more practical than a good theory.” Those who desire to discover and create, regardless of discipline or line of work, must not fail to appreciate this Tool of Tools, whose encyclopedic form was developed in Germany in the period 1808-1831 and continues to this day in the hands of the True Hegelians.

I'm not sure that the above can be rendered from the neutral point of view or be rendered clear enough to be of use in an article.

Maybe it will suffice to say that Wikipedia is not a platform to write in praise of Hegel in Hegelian language. We ought to be trying to write as clearly as possible about what Hegel said, and his life and influence.

--LMS

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I actually think that the paragraph about wikipedians makes sense if you know the terminology. However, I'm not convinced of its truth, or of it's value in this context. Perhaps it would be valuable in a paper on the epistemology of the wikipedia, but it isn't really about Hegel -- so it doesn't belong here.

I do think the article should at least have some real information about Hegel's work, and that there was content in the deleted portion which could be salvaged, but I'm not up to the task as my 19th century continental philosophy course flew through 300 pages of Hegel in about a week, and I'm pretty sure I only understood about half of those pages, and a few bits and pieces from the rest. Ah, if only I had more time... MRC

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Unfortunately Protogonus1 deleted his contribution. I don't know him, or the quality of his work, but I am sorry to see him go. I'm fairly certian that the text he wrote is legally ours still, and we could just put it back. However, I went ahead and replaced it, so as to avoid whatever ill will we can. MRC

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I understand that a long time ago this page was moved from Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel to its current location. However, let me assure you that, at least among German speakers, no one calls the philosopher in question Georg Hegel. I assume that most educated German speakers would not even recognize him if he were called like that. Now this is different from all those pages concerning British and American people who can be referred to by their first name plus surname only. Hegel is Hegel, both in educated conversation / oral presentations and in writing (where his full name or G.W.F. Hegel may be used as alternatives).

Now the whole thing may be a minor point, but I have disliked the Georg Hegel heading from the moment I first saw it months ago. I suggest Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel as the main entry, with redirects from Hegel and G.W.F. Hegel (and of course Georg Hegel).

Objections? --KF 15:28 25 Jun 2003 (UTC)

No objections for about two weeks, so I've moved the page and fixed the redirects. --KF 03:04 6 Jul 2003 (UTC)

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The first sentence reads (abbreviated): "Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel . . . received his education at the Tübinger Stift . . . where he was friends with the future philosophers Georg Hegel and Friedrich Schelling." He was friends with his future self? I'm confused.

I've read the Introduction to the Philosophy of History, which was actually written by Hegel, as opposed to the rest of the work which was compiled from the notes of his students. I know that he uses both 'thesis' and 'antithesis', which refer roughly to the Idea and this Spirit. While I agree that the thesis/antithesis/synthesis simplification is just that, a simplification, the claim that Hegel never used those terms is, at the very least, misleading.

There is nothing misleading in this claim. The claim in the article is not that he did not use those terms, but that he did not present dialectic as involving "thesis, antithesis, synthesis". He did not do so, so to describe dialectic in such a manner is not to present Hegel's system, but to interpret it. In any case, when the word "antithesis" appears in the introduction to the Philosophy of History, the German Gegensatz is better translated simply as "opposite". Hyperion 18:40, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Believe it or not, it is generally acceptted that Hegel is comparable to Aristotle. I guess find any textbook on philosophy and they will explain . Though i do also question how Hegel "completed Aristotle's valiant attempt". --antichrist

That Hegel influenced Nietzsche is ridiculous. Nietzsche has never bothered about Hegel; Nietzsche has probabily never read anything by Hegel.

[edit] Hegel and Nietzsche

I deleted the reference to Nietzsche. I had never heard about Hegel's influence on Nietzsche. Anyone able to prove otherwise? Nietzsche attacked Kant; that shows Nietzsche read Kant. But Hegel is even more idealistic, more rational, and more obscurant than Kant; yet Nietzsche has never attacked Hegel in any of his book. Nietzsche never bothered to read Hegel.

see my coment below 217.25.194.150 11:25, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

It is Kierkegaard who read Hegel and attacked him.

No, I don't think Kierkegaard actually read Hegel, either. The evidence is not there. His friends talked about Hegel, and that was why Kierkegaard mentioned Hegel here and there in a negative light. 66.143.165.1 11:52, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, Kierkegaard did read Hegel extensively while he was at the University of Copenhagen, and when he wrote his thesis in 1841, he was not very critical of Hegel. And in a journal entry around 1850, K even said back then he was such a "Hegelian fool". Poor Yorick 12:35, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Concerning the new corrections: How did Hegel influence the existentialists? And by the way, Arthur Schoepenhauer is not an existentialist.

I'm not sure which changes you're referring to, but (as I understand it) the primary influence of Hegel on the existentialists was by way of Kojeve, whose lectures on the Phenomenology of Spirit are said to have had a profound impact on Merleau-Ponty and Sartre. Whether he had an impact on Jaspers I'm less sure. And re the above: Nietzsche does attack Hegel in some works, but only in a very general way... whether he actually read anything by Hegel is not clear to me.

On another topic, it seems like the WP would be well-served by a survey article on Hegelianism from St. Louis to Kyoto, apart from this article which really ought to focus on Hegel's own life and work. Something for my to-do list, but if anyone else feels the same way please feel free... --Visviva 03:18, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Good idea. I've given that project a start, although just barely. Hope to have a chance to devote the appropriate kind of time and effort to it soon, and hope you help. Hegelianism After Hegel --Christofurio 14:07, Dec 13, 2004 (UTC)

Are you serious? Nietzsche's whole philosophical project was a reaction to the Hegelianism that predominated in German/European intellectual circles of the day (including its sub-variants such as Marxism, non-Marxist historicism etc). Therefore, Hegel is THE philosopher to understand to understand Nietzsche, even if he refers to him far less frequently than many other philosophers (Plato etc). A good early book by Nietzsche to read to see this is On the Advantages and Disadvantages of History for Life (historically most often translated as the Use and Abuse of History). --Rexrexilius 10:30, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Nietzsche's writings, even to the final books, were a reaction to Schopenhauer. Schopenhauer claimed that the world is essentially the same as that which we recognize in ourselves as will. But, he recommended that we deny the will and escape from all willing, wanting, and desiring. Nietzsche,in every one of his books, opposed Schopenhauer's recommendation. Yet, we have people like Rexrexilius who claim that Hegel had the most influence on Nietzsche, that Hegel must be read in order to understand Nietzsche. Nietzsche read very little of Hegel, and referred to him rarely. On the other hand, Nietzsche read all of Schopenhauer's works, even the correspondence and the manuscript remains, and referred to him in many, many places througout all of his books. This obvious fact must be known by academics, yet they need to push their Hegel, who is universally revered by the professors.Lestrade 15:28, 20 June 2007 (UTC)Lestrade

Here. The Use and Abuse of History for Life seems to have been reproduced in its entirety on this website. I in no way endorse this translation, which I'm assuming is an older one (how else could they skirt copyright laws on the translation, unless the copyright has lapsed?): Use and Abuse of History. A couple quotes to whet your appetites: "I believe that there has been no dangerous variation or change in German culture in this century which has not become more dangerous through the monstrous influence of the philosophy of Hegel, an influence which continues to flow right up to the present"

"However, this God became intelligible and comprehensible inside Hegelian brain cases and has already ascended all the dialectically possible steps of His being right up to that self-revelation. Thus, for Hegel the summit and end point of the world process coincided with his own individual existence in Berlin"

Remember, this is early, early, Nietzsche, so it is far more academic and systematic than his later works, but lacks their charm. But, understanding this early stuff helps to understand his philosophy as a whole.

There is very little evidence suggesting that Nietzsche actually read much Hegel. However, Nietzsche was very familiar with the work of Feuerbach and others of 'the Hegelian persuasion' and was in no small way influenced by them. However, I would very much dispute any sort of claim that Hegel directly influenced Nietzsche or that Nietzsche's critique of philosophy is primarily aimed at Hegel - while N does often directly criticize those who are influenced by Hegel. Nonetheless, I would add that Nietzsche and Hegel share much in common that has not really been appreciated to the degree it should. (Will Dudley's book called Hegel and Nietzsche or something in the Cambridge Modern Euro series offers some interesting recent work on this). --MalcolmMcC 12:58, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

--Rexrexilius 11:28, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

It's fairly clear that Nietzsche wasn't a good reader of *any* Systematic Philosophers. Nevertheless, Nietzsche's emphasis on Master/Slave morality was almost certainly a reaction to the widespread discussion of Hegel's Master/Slave theory in the 19th century. The main difference is that Hegel found a resolution to the conflict, where Nietzsche remained at the Either/Or, one-sided stage of thinking. (As for Kierkegaard, he seems to be in the same boat -- he responds to his friend's discussions about Hegel, and not to the actual texts of Hegel.) Petrejo 04:52, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Francis Fukuyama

I changed the part about (the U.S. conservative) Francis Fukuyama's book, labelled "simplistic and marred by the sort of incompetence and scholarly fraud..." This is POV and not something for an encyclopaedic type project. You can always link to outside websites that expound this view of Fukuyama's thesis. Or you could always go to the Fukuyama page and explain how it is different from Hegel's philosophy. Remember that writers and thinkers can be influenced by different philosophers and are not bound to apply their theories in a dogmatic fashion. For example, Marx was clearly influenced by Hegel, and yet his theories were sufficiently unique that while he probably shouldn't be relied upon if one is looking to study Hegel, his thought is of interest in its own right. Cheers.--Rexrexilius 10:25, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Fukuyama and Marx? OK, it's not so clear that Marx was influenced by Hegel since Marx clearly stated that his view was the *opposite* of Hegel's. Hegel would probably have given Marx a failing grade. Marx, for his part, quit the science of Philosophy (and he said so) to take up Political Science in his one-sided fashion. To try to align Marx with Hegel now is clumsy. Something similar may be said about Fukuyama. His famous opinion that modern times represent the 'Hegelian End of History' is so misguided that no genuine Hegelian could miss it. Hegel's philosophy suggests nothing of the sort in any way, shape or form. First, Hegel's term, 'End' is used in the sense of, 'Goal,' and the 'Goal of History' according to Hegel is the Divine Purpose as sensed by Christianity, the Self-return of Spirit, the return of Humanity to God. To imagine that the age of bourgois commercialism is Hegel's idea of Humanity's return to God is plain silly. Fukuyama should have resisted showing how little he knew about Hegel. Fukuyama doesn't deserve a place in any NPOV article about Hegel. However, dropping Hegel's name (out of context) is a postmodern pasttime, and so many poor readers of Hegel demand a reading simply because they drop his name (e.g. Heidegger, Derrida, Dunayevskaya, Fukuyama, etc.) Petrejo 04:08, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

RE: Petrejo's comment Marx and Hegel

it's not so clear that Marx was influenced by Hegel since Marx clearly stated that his view was the *opposite* of Hegel's. Hegel would probably have given Marx a failing grade.

To being with if you are influenced by another thinker, it does not mean you adopt there philosophy or even think positively about it. Pertejo how about a citation for where Marx claims his philosophy is the opposite of Hegel's. I am thinking you are referring to Marx's claim of Standing Hegel on his head. How unhegelian of you to consider Marx's thinking as one sided and not consider the purely hegelian manner in which Marx "rejects" Hegel. Marx had been a left hegelian in his youth, clearly influenced by Hegel As to what grade Hegel would give a thinker who became influential some 10 or more years after his death can not really be known. Claiming to know this assumes one would know how Hegel would have been influenced by events, or by the output of other thinkers had he lived another 20 years. Even if Marx had taken any of Hegel's classes it is still not clear why he would get a zero merely for disagreeing. To be sure, the horrible consequences of implementing Marx's ideas do not stem either from Hegel some alledged misunderstanding or outright abuse of Hegel on either the part of Marx or Engles.

!~ Spiker_22
 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.33.1.37 (talk) 11:18, 11 December 2007 (UTC) 

No Doubt Fukuyama's Hegelianism was diluted by Marx and to a larger extent, Kojeve,

but Petrejo's understanding of Fukuyama is perhaps as ill informed as he believes Fukuyama's understanding of Hegel is. Petrejo writes: His famous opinion that modern times represent the 'Hegelian End of History' is so misguided that no genuine Hegelian could miss it. Hegel's philosophy suggests nothing of the sort in any way, shape or form. First, Hegel's term, 'End' is used in the sense of, 'Goal,' and the 'Goal of History' according to Hegel is the Divine Purpose as sensed by Christianity, the Self-return of Spirit, the return of Humanity to God. To imagine that the age of bourgois commercialism is Hegel's idea of Humanity's return to God is plain silly"

  Fukuyama never makes such an argument. First Fukuyama's conception of the end of History was not a claim that he was explaining what Hegel believed or that it was a

neccessarily accurate interpretation of Hegelian philosophy. Further he never mentions "the Divine Purpose as sensed by Christianity, the Self-return of Spirit, the return of Humanity to God"

Fukuyama makes it clear in The End of History and The Last Man that he has something else in mind. I'll make this point by referring to Hegel, himself

In the Introduction to the Lectures on the History of Philosophy, Hegel explains

" The other sciences, indeed, have also according to their content a History, a part of which relates to alterations, and the renunciation of tenets which were formerly current. But a great, perhaps the greater, part of the history relates to what has proved permanent, so that what was new, was not an alteration on earlier acquisitions, but an addition to them. These sciences progress through a process of juxtaposition. It is true that in Botany, Mineralogy, and so on, much is dependent on what was previously known, but by far the greatest part remains stationary and by means of fresh matter is merely added to without itself being affected by the addition. With a science like Mathematics, history has, in the main, only the pleasing task of recording further additions. Thus to take an example, elementary geometry in so far as it was created by Euclid, may from his time on be regarded as having no further history...." (http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/hp/hpintroa.htm#A3c.)

 So while "End" may mean "Goal" "History" refers to the development of a particular content whether it be mathematics or History itself. Recall that the "Content" of History in the Hegelian sense is the development of human freedom... and that it can be said that

" the age of bourgois (SIC) commercialism may in deed be the point where history has "only the pleasing task of recording further additions" to the content of freedom. This is the argument, Fukuyama makes and that only a claim that one can read Hegel in this way. The context Fukuyama uses to make this claim is the collapse of the Soviet Union. That is the failure of, what for decades, appeared to some people to represent "The End of History" or perhaps the terminus of man's quest for freedom in the classless stateless society. At minimum the Marxian vision of communism represented "The End of History". Its disastorous failure raises the question of whether the development of freedom represented in Western civilization "may ...be regarded as having no further history" ~Spiker_22

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.33.1.37 (talk) 12:36, 28 November 2007 (UTC) 

[edit] Question of Racism and Slavery

I'm noting this for discussion, as I know a direct edit on the issue will be struck down by some partizan:

The article should at least mention that (1) Hegel was a notorious racist, and developed a racialist justification for European imperialism that had long-term influence/consequence, (2) Hegel's philosophy includes justifications for slavery.

I know this is an encyclopedia article, not an essay, but this is 2005: philosophers who explicitly, and repeatedly (and at great length) wrote racist theories should indeed have this duly noted in their encyclopedia articles --especially when they were influential over persons in power (in Europe) for centuries thereafter.

Hegel's _Philosophy of History_ includes many lengthy passages about how Africans are (supposedly) in a mental state of "perpetual childhood", whereas as "Asiatics" are mentally juvenile, etc., and only Europeans are "mental adults" --this stuff goes on for dozens of pages at a time throughout the book!

I'm not even going to bother to mention the issue of Sexism --but it is rather hilarious when Schopenhauer and Nietzsche have responsible short paragraphs included in their in their Wiki-articles about their (disputed) misogyny, a notorious and blunt misogynist like Hegel gets away unscathed.

Most of the modern proponents of Hegel's philosophy have read very little of his writing in the primary source (they rely on secondary sources); I do think it is important to "mention the unmentionables" --however briefly-- in an article such as this one. In any case, it is more important than notes about his personal/family life!

Unfortunately, I have to admit that Hegel exhibited sexism in his writings. However, I don't believe that Hegel can be accurately labeled as a misogynist, given that he fathered a child, whom he supported, by his landlady, and later got married (a rarity among first-tier philosophers: neither Locke nor Hume -- the greatest British philosphers -- married; Bertrand Russell did get married, but he ended up putting his wife into a madhouse).

It is also true that Hegel got it wrong with respect to the Asians, most notably the Japanese, with their ability to cultivate high-tech industry.

As for slavery and Africans however, your remarks are beside the point, since that great father of liberalism who provided the basis for the American project, John Locke, was able to come up with a justification for the enslavement of blacks. -- Hyperion 06:24, 23 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Hyperion, your argument is (strictly speaking) spurious. The fact that John Locke held racist views does not mean it is "beside the point" that Hegel held racist views. Hegel stated that Africans were racially limited to a "perpetual mental childhood" --and says that Asian are limited to a perpetual mental adolescence. It is interesting to note (by way of contrast) that he was a big fan of Arabs and Islamic civilization generally --the only non-European civilization to merit much praise in Hegel's books.

Sorry to interrupt here, but this is too important. Actually, Hegel said that the global equality of Africans became clear to him when African-Americans finally founded the State of Haiti on a Christian (e.g. freedom-loving) basis. For Hegel, FREEDOM is the key criterion for Equality. That should stand to reason. Hegel is sternly against all forms of Slavery -- not only in the USA but also in Africa itself. That explains Hegel's negative judgement about Africa. It has *nothing* to do with Racial characteristics as such, and *everything* to do with the almost complete absence of FREEDOM in the African States of his time. Yet Hegel also shows that *every* nation in the world started exactly where Africa sat in 1820. It was and remains a *relative* judgement based on time and history. Petrejo 04:49, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

To say that a man who "fathers a child" is "therefore not a misogynist" is completely absurd. Anyone can get a woman pregnant --be it from love, hate, boredom, or error-- and Hegel's own writing on the matter is completely explicit. Women are incapable of philosophy --even music, art and literature!-- according to Hegel. Their minds are made out to be quite worthless.

BTW, your remark about "Japan" being a special exception certainly betrays a prejudicial attitude of your own. Do you know anything about the history of science and technology in China or India? Advanced Metallurgy in India pre-dates the same development in Europe by thousands of years --and any standard text on the history of medicine in Asia will heap scorn on the leach-bleeding "science" of Europe that prevailed up to the 17th century, while all of Asia had highly developed notions of science, medicine, and technology.

But then, you don't need to know anything to put an opinion on a Wiki, do you?

Concerning Hegel and the Philosophy of History, and the un- PC things said therein - "Quoting" Walter Kauffman from memory: "there are 2 things you should keep in mind concerning this book. First, it is relatively easy Hegel and good one to start your Hegel studies with and get an idea of his theories. Second, Georg W. F. Hegel never wrote or intended to write a book called The Philosophy of History." --John Z 22:00, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

Regarding Hegel and Women, these charges against Hegel aren't based on direct quotations. You clearly got them from secondary literature. Now, Nietzsche surely said openly insulting things about Women (but pro-Nietzsche POV editors keep erasing them from his article), but where did Hegel ever say those horrible things about Women? Nowhere. Rather, here's a URL that contradicts your POV: http://www.cola.wright.edu/Dept/PHL/Class/gwfh/reply2.html Petrejo 04:01, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

To play devil's advocate, I wonder about this assumption that Hegel's quotations give us some unmitigated truth about his attitude towards women. There is a reason secondary literature exists; occaionally people don't write about their biases with complete abandon.--Susanelizabeth

 It's great to see that you have learned to immunize your arguemnts against criticsm by claiming some "partizan"(Sic) would delete it. Not too much of a stretch then to say some "partizan" (Sic) would object to it as well as if no cognitive grounds could be found for objection.
Very well, I will play the partisan. The problem with your post starts with the first statement:

"The article should at least mention that (1) Hegel was a notorious racist, and developed a racialist justification for European imperialism that had long-term influence/consequence, (2) Hegel's philosophy includes justifications for slavery." Sounds like someone has been to college! Hey Hey HO Ho Western Civ must go, eh? In what way does Hegel gain notoriety for racism as against, say the likes of Jakob Fries? Claiming other races are inferior can certainly be called racism; yet there really isn't anything particularly notorious about those claims and merely holding or expounding such beliefs does not justify either slavery or imperialism (the last I am sure hyperion can not even produce a solid definition of) Here is where I will admit that I was wrong. The problem does not start with your first statement, but with the heading: Question of Racism and Slavery. Not one question was asked. Nor is there even a shred of doubt or curiousity. Not even a pretense toward open mindedness. It was just a springboard to regurgitate the opinion of another. ~ Spiker_22 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.33.1.37 (talk) 10:32, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Correction on "Left Hegelians"

I hope this isn't too controvertial, but the original text suggested that the so-called "Left Hegelians" actually described themselves as "Hegelians" --for many of the examples named the exact opposite was the case! Men like Stirner poured scorn on Hegel, and never once suggested any sympathy or respect for Hegel's work. In any case, the article now reflects the fact the "Left Hegelian" is a post-period term used by contemporary historians of philosophy, and not a term used by these men themselves. There is also confusion because "die Freien" (which actually was an historical "club") is imagined as if it were somehow a club of people who described themselves as "Young Hegelians" --not at all!

---

It is important to note that almost none of the so-called "Left Hegelians" actually described themselves as followers of Hegel, and several of them openly repudiated or insulted the legacy of Hegel's philosophy. Nevertheless, this historical category is deemed useful in contemporary academic philosophy (in part because the critiques of Hegel offered from the "Left Hegelians" form an important part of the literature on and about Hegel) and it includes Bruno Bauer, Ludwig Feuerbach, David Friedrich Strauss, Max Stirner, and most famously, Karl Marx. Bauer, Marx, and Stirner were members of a political-philosophic roundtable called die Freien ("the free"), all of whom were familiar with Hegel's work but repudiated it. Although both Stirner's anarchistic variety of egoism and Marx's version of communism were briefly "united" by membership in die Freien, this was only a debating club, and the two schools of thought neither have common origins, nor common attitudes toward Hegel.

Regarding Marx and Marxists, this rather overstates the case. Marx famously "proclaimed himself a pupil of that mighty thinker" in Capital, long after H was fashionable, and Engels' and Lenin's appreciation of Hegel was if anything more fervent.--John Z 20:38, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

You have omitted Marx's famous saying that he turned Hegel upside down in order to make Hegel useful. Hegel was a Speculative Idealist while Marx was a materialist, so Marx obviously *stopped* being a pupil of the mighty thinker at some point. As for Engels' and Lenin's "appreciation" of Hegel, it comes only after they also "turn Hegel upside down" and force their own materialist reading into the text. Hegel's ontological logic and his theological orientation were anathema to those three heroes of the USSR. Shouldn't we yawn when Marxists wave the Hegel flag so broadly? Petrejo 04:40, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Marx wrote that he was a pupil of the mighty thinker in the same 1873 preface where he wrote that Hegel's dialectic must be inverted. I don't know why it should be difficult to understand that no intelligent pupil would accept all of a thinker's conclusions unchanged. (That's what Hegel called "intellectual sloth" in the case of the Kantians.) Consider the dialogue between, say, Louis Dupre and Raya Dunayevskaya. He is perfectly aware of the differences between a Marxian reading of Hegel and his own, yet considered it a fruitful dialogue. See his Foreword to the 2003 edition of her book Philosophy and Revolution. Why do you think the Hegel Society of America invited the Marxist-Humanist Dunayevskaya to speak and published her lecture in a collection from their conference? Go ahead and yawn if you wish, but serious Hegelians find meaning in the dialogue. Franklin Dmitryev 00:55, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Removed: POV criticisms of Hegel

This is grossly POV, not to mention a garbled mish-mash:

"Furthermore, given that Hegel's political thought synthesizes the respective strong points of liberalism and conservatism, Hegel's philosophy offers an alternative to liberalism, something that is especially relevant given that some see liberalism as presently challenged on its inability to do justice to individuals' need to hold fundamental values."

No doubt there ought to be a counterbalance to all the praise of Hegel that immediately precedes it, but his reknown is undeniable, whether one subscribes to his ideas or not. The contrary position is not so clear, and this excerpt certainly does not meet that purpose.

For one, the claims it makes demand more explanation than is appropriate to the succinctness of the header of an article. What are the "strong points of liberalism and conservatism"? Does Hegel truly offer "an alternative to liberalism"? According to whom? Who are the "some" who see liberalism as challenged, and why is their opinion important or relevant? Which individuals have a "need to hold fundamental values"? If the answers to these questions are meritorious of inclusion in this article, they should be examined in a section on criticisms of Hegel, and labelled as such. A summary of those criticisms would then appropriately be included with the lead-in. Vorpal Suds 04:56, 10 May 2005 (UTC)

I am utterly baffled by this entry. First, the passage in question is not a criticism of Hegel (as the subject heading indicates), but an indication of one of the main reasons why Hegel is relevant for us today. If the mention of why a philosopher has contemporary relevance is not appropriate in the header of a Wikipedia article about that philosopher, I don't know what is. I am thus restoring the sentence in question.

The person making this post raises a valid point, however. The claims made in this sentence should be expanded upon in the rest of this article. I shall try to do that in the near future. In the meantime however, I believe that this "teaser" can be left in, especially given how undeveloped the rest of the article is. -- Hyperion 09:12, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

I would like to see the sentence in question removed, especially if no source can be documented. Hegel's thought is important to Nietzsche and underlies a great deal of continental philosophy, including Heidegger, Gadamer, Habermas, Derrida, and Charles Taylor. His relevance is not dependent on an alleged critique of contemporary political liberalism. The sentence reads like agenda-pursuant original reserch to me. --goethean 15:50, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

H. thought is important to Nietzsche - on the contrary F.N., just as A.S., view dialectic as the weakness of the mind. N. said, that dialectic is last resort of those with no other explanation on some subject (don't expect me to find quote). 217.25.194.150 11:18, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

The quote you have in mind might be this one: "I mistrust all Systematizers and I avoid them. The will to a System is a lack of integrity" (Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols, sec. 26). It's amusing because it's so lazy. Aristotle lacked integrity? Spinoza? Descartes? Kant? Hegel? No, rather, Nietzsche was trying to absolve his own laziness and lack of production of formal Philosophy. Also, Nietzsche may have been envious of those who actually read Hegel -- he himself shows no evidence of ever having done so. Petrejo 11:48, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

It is still POV drivel in many places, I have removed all of that now. Better to build it up again SGGH ^speak! 23:12, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Hegel's meaning...

Towards the top of this article there is a section which reads:

---

"This reflection of the mind on itself is individual self-consciousness - the polar opposite of the Idea in its general form, and therefore existing in absolute Limitation. This polar opposite is consequently limitation, particularization, for the universal absolute being; it is the side of its definite existence; the sphere of its formal reality, the sphere of the reverence paid to God. - To comprehend the absolute connection of this antithesis, is the profound task of metaphysics."

Therefore, Hegel is stating, albeit in difficult turns of phrase, that metaphysics should be concerned with grasping the mechanics of how the thesis and antithesis are connected in each individual case. To do so would involve comparing examples of events of history with their archetypal forms and trying to understand both the similarities and the differences between them.

---

The top paragraph is a quote from Hegel and the bottom paragraph is an interpretation by the author, (or one of the authors), of this article.

I'm not entirely sure that the interpretation is correct. I've seen language such as Hegel is using here in Gnostic works, and those works were not speaking about interpreting history. If Hegel's writing here is what it appears to be, he may actually be talking about the seperation of human individual awareness from the greater universal awareness due to the human's tendancy to regard itself as self-conscious. In this case, Hegel's "Idea" would actually be the same as the Logos of the Gnostics - which would explain why he keeps capitalizing it.

The reason that Hegel's "turns of phrase" may seem so difficult is because the author is trying to turn them in a different direction than they were meant to go.

That's just my personal observation though, I don't have a doctorate in Philosophy or anything...

Nortonew 28 June 2005 19:53 (UTC)

[edit] The word "contemporary"

I was just reading this for edification (I'm not a philosophy student) and felt a little ambiguity at the paragraph opening "In contemporary accounts of Hegelianism...". "Contemporary" is an annoying word because it admits two practically opposite meanings. In the context of the previous paragraph, I started by wondering if it meant contemporary with the Left Hegelians. I would suggest replacing it with the word "modern" - unless there is some usage, or better word, that's more current within a scholarly community? David Brooks 19:57, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Optimum World Soul

Who was the best World Soul in his time, Calvin Coolidge or Jimmy Carter?

As far as I know, "world soul" is not a Hegelian term or concept. It's primarily Platonic and Stoic, although in Germany apparently Goethe and Herder both used it. Jeremy J. Shapiro 18:05, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

"Hegel took the Zeitgeist as a spiritual and intellectual reality which is not totally alien to the intellectual exposition present in a philosophical system." More here. --goethean ॐ 18:23, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

"Weltgeist" in German does not mean World Soul, just as "Zeitgeist" does not mean "soul" of the time. "Weltseele" does. "Seele" in German, like "soul" in English, has much more of an emphatically individual, "spiritual" meaning than Geist does. While "Geist" also has "spirit" as one of its meanings, it also means "mind" to a greater extent, and when Hegel says "absoluter Geist", for "absolute mind", or "Zeitgeist", for "the spirit/mind of an era", he is not saying something that has a personalistic or soul-like implication. "Seele" in German is like "psyche" in Greek. So when, as in the quote you gave, it says that the Zeigeist is a "spiritual and intellectual reality", it is not a soul-like reality. That is why the quotation specifically states that in this context Geist "is not...alien to the intellectual exposition present in a philosophical system", which is not usually soul-like. If he had wanted to say world soul, he would have said "Weltseele", since the term existed in German. Jeremy J. Shapiro 18:48, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

Hm. Thanks. --goethean ॐ 18:51, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Request for clarification

I don't fully understand the following sentence in the introductory paragraphs, and would appreciate it if someone could paraphrase it for me: "Hegel might well have noted that the positivist response, that to declare the limits of concepts is to deny freedom of thought, is declared by positivism as an incontestable dogma." Jeremy J. Shapiro 19:44, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Revised introduction

From the previous introduction it wasn't really possible to get a sense of what Hegel's main ideas were, most of it was about his impact. I rewrote it to get the main point of his philosophy across. It overlaps with some material that comes later in the article

I also took out the following conclusion to the introduction (but thought I'd store it here for possible future use), because a) it didn't seem clear (e.g. the Adorno quote wouldn't be easily understandable to a non-philosophical reader), b) had too literary a quality (e.g. "ironically"), and c) seemed too focused on the need to counter-attack positivism, which I actually couldn't completely understand, i.e. the freedom of thought part. Here it is, for the record: "Ironically, Hegel himself was well aware of his 'obscurantism,' or what has also been called 'dialectical thinking,' which has been summarized by Theodor Adorno in the phrase, 'objects do not go into their concepts without leaving a remainder.' Hegel might well have noted that the positivist response, that to declare the limits of concepts is to deny freedom of thought, is declared by positivism as an incontestable dogma."

    Jeremy J. Shapiro 08:03, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Problem with the Hegel quotes

I believe that the Hegel quotes in the article are a waste. I don't think that any "normal" Encyclopedia reader would be able to comprehend them. I have plenty of trouble with them myself, out of context in this way. I think that a paraphrase of his important ideas would be much better and more appropriate. The other WP philosophy articles I've looked at don't have chunks of difficult quotes like these sticking in the middle of them. Jeremy J. Shapiro 08:03, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

Rereading these quotes and the interpretation of them again a few times, I've decided to take them out and place them here until we figure out what to do with the philosophical substance of this article, since I don't think any beginning reader will be able to make any sense of them at all. Plus the commentary confused metaphysics and the mechanics of history, talked about "absolute archtypes", etc. Here is what I removed:

<<In the introduction to The Philosophy of History (translated by J. Sibree) Hegel says: "Philosophy shows that the Idea advances to an infinite antithesis; that, viz. between the Idea in its free, universal form - in which it exists for itself - and the contrasted form of abstract introversion, reflection on itself, which is formal existence-for-self, personality, formal freedom, such as belongs to Spirit only."

So, breaking it down, there are two forms of the universal idea and they are always and infinitely the antithesis of each other. One form is the general principle of it and the other form is its specific application to the actual events in history. He continues to say: "The universal Idea exists thus as the substantial totality of things on the one side, and as the abstract essence of free volition on the other side."

and: "This reflection of the mind on itself is individual self-consciousness - the polar opposite of the Idea in its general form, and therefore existing in absolute Limitation. This polar opposite is consequently limitation, particularization, for the universal absolute being; it is the side of its definite existence; the sphere of its formal reality, the sphere of the reverence paid to God. - To comprehend the absolute connection of this antithesis, is the profound task of metaphysics."

Therefore, Hegel is stating, albeit in difficult turns of phrase, that metaphysics should be concerned with grasping the mechanics of how the thesis and antithesis are connected in each individual case. To do so would involve comparing examples of events of history with their archetypal forms and trying to understand both the similarities and the differences between them.>>

    Jeremy J. Shapiro 21:27, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

The "Intelligenzblatt der Jenaer Allgemeinen Literatur-Zeitung" published the following advertisement ("Selbstanzeige") from and about Hegel on 28 October 1807: "Im Verlage der Jos. Ant. Goebhardtschen Buchhandlungen zu Bamberg und Würzburg ist erschienen [...] "Die Phänomologie des Geistes" enthaltend. Gr. 8. 1807. Preis 6 fl. Dieser Band stellt das _werdende Wissen_ dar."... -- Translation into English: "This volume represents the _growing knowledge_." -- Well, can someone of you explain how someone can try to represent something which is growing? Hans Rosenthal (ROHA) (hans.rosenthal AT t-online.de -- replace AT by @ ) PS: I mean, Hegel was trying to write down the knowledge of his time, while it was growing and expanding. Is this not absurd? -- No, it is not. Since he was forced to earn his livings.

I don't understand this comment. Could you please clarify? Many intellectual disciplines study things that are in the process of development or becoming, including human development, psychology, biology, contemporary intellectual history, contemporary literary studies, ecology, embryology, meteorology, etc. What's the problem with studying something that is becoming or developing. Also please know that "werden" does not mean "growing" -- that is an interpretation. "Becoming" is not exactly the same as "growing" -- but for present purposes it doesn't matter, because there are intellectual disciplines that study both. Why should Hegel be any different? Jeremy J. Shapiro 02:15, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

"Could you please clarify?" -- Yes. What Hegel meant by saying "Dieser Band stellt das

_werdende Wissen_ dar." did not mean less than: I know and am aware of what _knowledge_ was in the past, is in the present, and will be in the future. And while trying to confirm what he said, he made too many errors. He mixed up the factual with the ideal, and he did not mix them up by chance, but by having something different in mind. And what he had in mind, well, I leave it to the readers to figure out. Hans Rosenthal (ROHA) (hans.rosenthal AT t-online.de -- replace AT by @ )

Since the debate betweeen Hegelians and anti-Hegelians has been going on for over 150 years, and there is an extensive scholarly literature on it, and the debate is still going on, and no-one who is serious about this debate is going to read the Talk page of the Hegel article on Wikipedia as a way of mastering this complex debate, it seems to me that it would be more appropriate to conduct it in a philosophy journal than here. Seems to me that what is relevant to the article would be, what are the main traditions of the critique of Hegel, and how much of which of them should be represented in the Hegel article. For example, currently only Karl Popper is discussed briefly, and there is no presentation and discussion of the Hegel critiques of, among others, the late Schelling, Kierkegaard, Marx, Bertrand Russell, etc. Marx is listed, but there's no discussion of his early writings about and critique of Hegel.

Here follows:

 But since even Hegel's main ideas

Can you formulate Hegel`s _____main ideas_____ in a sentence? Thank you for that !!

and system are not spelled out in the article, it seems to me that doing so should be a principal priority. However, if anyone wants to present any or all of the major and most influential Hegel critiques, that would clearly be a contribution as well. As mentioned earlier on this page, some of the major critiques have important counter-critiques as well. For example, the idea that Hegel conflated the factual with the ideal, stated above by Hans Rosenthal, has been refuted by the major works of Hegel scholarship that I know. Jeremy J. Shapiro 04:27, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Now, Jjshapiro, before you give any warning to me, may I give a general warning to all and every reader of this Wikipedia-Page? Thanks. So I have the bad fealing that Jeremy J. Shapiro might be something very similar to a certain contributor who named himself "Lulu", and who had nothing to contribute to the Wikipedia than erasing others contributors valuable submissions. Hans Rosenthal (ROHA) (hans.rosenthal AT t-online.de -- replace AT by @ ) PS: I do not exactly call Jeremy J. Shapiro to be one of those type of Wikipedians, but I have made my experiences. Hans Rosenthal (ROHA) (hans.rosenthal AT t-online.de -- replace AT by @ )

I think that almost all philosophers would agree that it is either impossible or trivializing to attempt to capture in a single sentence the ideas of any philosopher. Because philosophy consists of arguments that sometimes are complex or have many parts and that rest on sets of assumptions that only make sense in particular contexts or situations in the history of ideas, any statement of the ideas of any philosopher (from any tradition, including Descartes, Locke, Bertrand Russell, Plato, etc.) in a single sentence ends up saying something that only means something when it has been elaborated upon, expanded, and interpreted, which is why there are voluminous literatures on what every great philosopher really meant. Even with someone like Heraclitus, whose important ideas have come down to us as single sentences, those sentences sometimes requires a book-length elaboration and intepretation to mean something coherent and understandable. And when one-volume desk encyclopedias or reference works reduce a philosopher's idea to one sentence or even a few, they end up saying things that are trivial or that mean something only to someone who knows the larger context in which that philosopher wrote. I don't think Hegel is any different from any other philosopher in this regard (which is why most of them in the Western tradition wrote whole books, or many to lay out their ideas properly). I personally believe that the introductory paragraph of our Hegel article is a decent one-paragraph statement of his ideas; but since I had a hand in writing it, I'm not a reliable judge. Jeremy J. Shapiro 04:22, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Hegel's legacy (interpretation)

I have added just such a quote to the superb section entiteld Hegel's legacy (interpretation) While it may be true that some of the terms have special definitions and therefore may not give the average reader much help in understanding him, it does help provide a key insight into what hegel is trying to do Spiker 22 (talk) 07:52, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Hegel's mediation, anyone?

after I have been asking a NUMBER of people, directly, on forums, on usenet, on mailing lists, after doing some search on my own, it starts to get REALLY frustrating, as noone seem to be able to help.

all I ask is SIMPLE introduction in Hegel's concept of "mediation". so far, everybody refused, saying "because Hegel's mediation, being central part of his theory, is so complex, and you will not believe how complex it is, it just can't be reduced to simple things... it's just that complex, accept it".

I wholeheartedly disagree with such an attitude. In my limited personal experience, every complex thing gets very simple and reduceable to primitive examples, as soon as one understands it.

Imagine you'd have to explain Hegel to children. It is quite obvious, that Hegel quotes (as somebody put it, designed to be a response to Kant) do not fit here. Right? Instead of getting straight to the most complex concepts like God, Truth, etc, one should rather get something simple and familiar, and show how key Hegel concepts apply.

Like, if you were to explain what is "relation" between two things, it would help if you have provided some real-life examples of relationship: a house is bigger than a man, an apple is bigger than a coin (relation: bigger), light bulb shines brighter than a match, Sun shines brighter than light bulb (relation: brighter). This is that simple.

Could you please take 5 minutes and reply me with stuff like that? Thanks.

First of all, I think that Hegel -- and many other philosophers, including Plato, Aristotle, and Kant -- would say that you are wrong because you're not distinguishing between everyday knowledge or understanding and philosophical knowledge and understanding. Everyday knowledge or understanding consists of things that can be explained in simple terms, philosophical knowledge can't. That's the whole point of Plato writing whole dialogues to deconstruct everyday concepts to show that they conceal complexities, and of Hegel's wonderful essay, which you should read, and it's only a few pages long, called "Who Thinks Abstractly" ("Wer denkt abstrakt"), which argues that people in everyday life THINK that their concepts are concrete and that philosophers' are abstract, whereas it's actually the other way around, and that it's only the complex philosophical laying out of concepts and meanings that reveals their contexts and thereby their concrete meanings. Hegel argues explicitly that to do philosophy you have to get beyond thinking in images (Vorstellungen) and make the radical transition to thinking in concepts (Begriffe) which can't be reduced to images, and therefore this idea of understanding philosophy in terms of things that are "simple and familiar" and that a child could understand is, Hegel argues, simply wrong.

when you eat a cake, you can't swallow it all at once - you have to do it bite by bite. 82.207.25.203

With that said, however, I think that if I were going to explain mediation (Vermittlung) to children, I'd explain it in terms of the concept pairs of direct/indirect and dependent/independent. Take something that you think that you can access or know directly and/or that exists independently -- e.g. I directly see and feel this computer that is right in front of me on my desk and that just exists independently, or a piece of music that is playing on the radio and that I just hear and feel directly and that just exists independently -- and if you think about it, you realize that your whole cognitive and emotional apparatus had to develop in order for you to be able to have these experiences, and that your whole culture had to exist and develop in order for you to be able to recognize and experience those things in those ways, so that your accessing or knowledge of them is in that sense not direct but indirect, and that, in addition, those "independent" things, i.e. the computer and the piece of music, had to be produced or created, which depend on the computer industry and the development of science and technology or on the music industry and the performers and recording technology and so on, so that in reality these things that seem "direct" and "independent" are really parts of large and complex contexts and histories, that is they are not "immediate" but "mediated".

so, what exactly is "mediation"? cognitive and emotional apparatus? my whole culture? computer industry? could you please explain what is what in the above? it's like if I would ask you about Newton's f=-GMm/r^2, and you would tell me that there are masses, and there is radius, and that f depends on it, but the rest is up to my imagination. I'm sorry, but what kind of explanation is that? 82.207.25.203

Yes, well, in a way it is up to your "imagination", if you want to put it that way. Perhaps another way to say it in contemporary parlance is simply that "mediation" means "context dependence", which means that the way anything is mediated, and what mediates it, is specific to the context of each thing that you're investigating. So the answer to all of your questions is "yes". The mediation of any particular phenomenon, object, or state of consciousness is precisely mediated by the context or contexts that are most relevant to its genesis and nature. It's exactly like your example above of relationship. From a "cosmic" perspective, everything is in relation to every other thing in the universe, which a number of philosophers (e.g. Whitehead) have stressed. But it would be impossible as well as stupid to describe anything in terms of the complete list of relationships that it's in, or the complete set of factors through which it is mediated. So the answer is going to be shaped by your inquiry, and you have to use some principle of selection specific to that inquiry. If you're wanting to study a computer, you will have to look at its concrete context and dependencies (which would include the computer industy, the social context of computing, and son), if you're studying perceptual consciousness you will look at its concrete context and dependencies, e.g. the cognitive apparatus, its relationship to the environment, and so on. This is philosophy, not natural science. Newton's formula is the same in all contexts, the implication of a philosophical notion about context is going to be different in each context. But since you cite Newton, perhaps a relevant example would be that one of the reasons that it took a long time to discover the laws of modern physics was that people were trying to generate them from common sense. Galileo and Newton were trying to abstract from common sense perception and experience using mathematics, and their laws have to be interpreted situationally to account for such things as resistance, not being in a vacuum, and so on. Same with Hegel. There is a difference of level between the level at which the principle exists and the level of applying and interpreting it in different contexts. So, with regard to Hegel, the concrete meaning of mediation will be different for every object and in every context. That's why Hegel believed (regardless of what one thinks of his results) that he had to develop a system that included all of nature, society, history, politics, art, and religion, to capture the way that every specific thing was mediated. Of course no-one would now believe that such a comprehensive system is possible, so one would study only the mediations of some delimited subdomain. If you're seriously interested in understanding Hegel, i.e. more than the one-sentence version -- from the tone of your remarks I can't completely tell if you're trying to understand or more just wanting to complain or be in conflict, and I won't engage in the latter -- you should probably read an intelligent, competent, and non-dogmatic laying out of his philosophy, in which this idea of mediation would become clearer. My own suggestions would be J.N. Findlays "Hegel: a re-examination", and Errol Harris's "Formal, Transcendental, and Dialectical Thinking: Logic and Reality". The latter has the distinct advantage of not even being about Hegel but rather attempts to use his ideas in the context of present thought and knowledge. And of course there are many things in life where, after one reads the one-sentence version and is dissatisfied with that, one doesn't feel like pursuing it further. Fair enough -- I feel that way after most movie reviews and therefore generally don't go to the movies. Jeremy J. Shapiro 20:23, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

I still think that mediation, being one of core concepts, should have precise - and, yes, abstract - definition. after all, concrete definition would coincide with all what Hegel ever wrote, or at least, be a huge part of it. anyway, you are all welcome to comment further at usenet. 82.207.60.34 22:06, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Yes, you're right. And at various points Hegel did argue precisely as you suggest -- that if you didn't work through his entire system, then you could in fact not understand these concepts fully. As he says in the preface to his Phenomenology of Mind, if the World Spirit has had the patience to work out these concepts and processes through the course of history, then the individual should have the patience to recapitulate that development in his/her own individual intellectual development. But I think that this is a bit of an exaggeration on his part. There are individual sections of his works, e.g. the first chapter of the phenomenology, on sense-certainty, where he illustrates mediation in just a few pages. For example, he says there that in sense perception, we believe that we are having "immediate", pre-conceptual sense experience. But when we talk about it through ostensive language use, i.e just pointing and saying "this", we are not able to grasp this "immediate" experience in any direct way but only rather through such abstract concepts as "this", "here", "now", which are universals rather than particulars. So our sense experience is mediated by universals and is not as particular as we think it is. Similarly, in the preface to his logic, he points out that when we talk about the principles or laws of thought, we are already having to use and therefore presuppose the validity of thought in order to do so. Therefore we can't arrive at a foundation of knowledge or truth that would be free of presuppositions and therefore "immediate", because to get at it we have to already adopt presuppositions, and therefore our foundations is mediated by thought rather than immediate. And I think that it is possible to grasp this idea without going through the totality of Hegel's system. Jeremy J. Shapiro 23:03, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

This is why Hegel says that everything that exists is both immediate and mediated -- and also why he says that "the whole is the true", because only the whole contains and grasps all of the mediations of any particular thing. I think that that's a fair and relatively simple account of what "mediation" means in Hegel's work. Of course one could say, "that's obvious". And all concepts are obvious when one understands them. Jeremy J. Shapiro 14:11, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

I think noone in my position would agree that above is enough to understand what "mediation" is. sorry to break your reply, but I thought this way I would address your points more precisely. 82.207.25.203 17:59, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

what I have after a week of discussions and reading Hegel myself (just a bit) is impression that determination is stronger than mediation. also, mediation seem to be a relationship of being with whatever else, but, which of such relationships are, and which are not mediations, are not clear. because, if they ALL are, as some suggest, then the word "mediation" has no special meaning and can be simply ommited wherever encountered :-( 217.25.194.150 07:59, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

it turned out I've been really on the wrong track. if you want to know how that has ended, check this out. 217.25.194.150 a 2005 discussion with paul trejo on hegel-intro at yahoo.com.

[edit] publication dates

I've just edited "Life and work" according to what is said in preface to HEGEL'S THEORY OF MENTAL ACTIVITY, WlLLEM A. DEVRIES; and I noticed some dates do not coincide with those in "Major works" put there by someone earlier. Can some one please verify and put correct dates in both sections, thanx. 82.207.61.131 17:13, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

Here's complete list of Hegel's work. I porpose to replace "works" section with this list:

Essays (1793-5):

• The Positivity of The Christian Religion
• The Spirit of Christianity and its Fate
• System of Ethical Life (1802-3)
• Realphilosophie I (1803-4) & II (1805-6)
• First Philosophy of Spirit
• Faith and Knowledge
• The Difference between Fichte's and Schelling's Systems of Philosophy
• An Essay on Natural Law

Books:

• Phenomenonology of Spirit (1807)
• The Science of Logic:

Part I: The Doctrine of Being (1812) Part II: The Doctrine of Essence (1813) Part III: The Doctrine of the Notion (1816)

• Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences (1817 & revised up till his death in 1831)
• The Philosophy of Right (1821)

source 217.25.194.150 13:07, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Peculiar early work

I'm going to remove the recent addition to the article quoting Hegel about the Phenomenology as a "peculiar early work" for two reasons: 1) it doesn't really add to this general article about Hegel and makes one wonder why it's there; 2) the translation is not felicitous and gives a misleading impression -- the German word should really be translated as "singular" or "unusual", not "peculiar" in the sense of there being anything weird about it or wrong with it. Jeremy J. Shapiro 18:57, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

You may be trying to make Hegel look better here? Look at time difference between Enc-a and Ph-gy, in years. Do you think for all this years Hegel never re-thinked anything he wrote there? 82.207.26.124

By the way, Hegel refers approvingly to the Phenomenology of Mind in the preface to the 2d edition his Science of Logic, written in 1831 during the last year of his life. Jeremy J. Shapiro 03:53, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

This is not my point at all. Perhaps the article should have a section about Hegel's development, changes in his thinking, self-criticism, etc. in which case it should begin with his early writings (e.g. Theological Fragments, Differenzschrift, Glauben und Wissen, and so on). My points were rather 1) that "peculiar" is an inaccurate rendering of Hegel's term (it is either "eigentuemlich" or "eigenartig", I can't remember which), which really mean "unusual", "singular", or "special" -- actually probably the best in English would be "characteristic" -- and is NOT a negative self-evaluation of the sort that "peculiar" conveys; 2) sticking ANY self-evaluation in as a parenthetical phrase in the list of his major works makes that paragraph seem unbalanced. I believe that one of the key criteria for a good encyclopedia article in Wikipedia or elsewhere is that it should be BALANCED, i.e. there should not be individual facts or pieces of information or statements that either jut out of the article or jump out of it with special emphais, and that it should reflect a balanced view of what is important and unimportant, major and minor, main views (of a thinker) and criticisms, and so on. If I had to cite the one major weakness I see in the problematic Wikipedia articles that I look at or work on -- and of course many don't have this problem -- I'd say it was imbalance, sometimes because people stuck in individual facts that they were attached to rather than stepping back and taking the long view of the article as a whole. That's why I say that, if there are going to be critical statements of Hegel's about his works, whether appreciative, derogatory, or other, it would be more balanced to include them in a paragraph about Hegel's development rather than sticking one in as a descriptor of one work in a longer list of works. To me that's an example of imbalance. Jeremy J. Shapiro 22:14, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] A remark on a statement

Someone in this discussion forum wrote:

"Everyday knowledge or understanding consists of things that can be explained in simple terms, philosophical knowledge can't."

This statement seems to result from a fundamental misconception of philosophy. As long as philosophy is written in a natural language, it's contents must necessarily be explainable in simple terms. The most abstract mathematics must be explainable in simple and understandable terms. Every mathematical statement can be reduced to axioms and definitions. If you ask a mathematician why the prime number theorem is true, then s/he will certainly not answer you: Well, that is not everyday knowledge, so can't be explained in simple terms. What s/he will instead give you is a short and clear demonstration of the facts, leading back to the first and easiest terms of human language (definitions, axioms, theorems and their proofs). Philosophy is not independent of the natural language. But sometimes philosophers do not want to be understood. Then they are tempted to use formulations, which, when analyzed by logical reasoning and reduced to the natural language turn out to be _emty_ and _void_. And get me right: Mathematics is very much closer to philosophy than to natural sciences. But each of these is based on and dependent from our natural language. So to claim that something cannot be explained in simple words means the same as to say that some people talk about things which they have no idea about themselves. Hans Rosenthal (ROHA) (hans.rosenthal AT t-online.de -- replace AT by @ ) (17112005)

This is an interesting idea. But almost the entire history of Western philosophy disagrees with you, and critiques common sense concepts and language as a way of understanding things (with, of course, some important exceptions, such as G. E. Moore, Wittgenstein, and some others). And your example of mathematics is poor, because a) mathematics is a fairly self-contained science, b) the very fact that it can rely on axioms makes it qualitatively different philosophy, which has always had the task of trying to explain or derive the axioms themselves, and c) many parts of which can't be explained to someone who does not spend significant amounts of time and effort extending and complicating their thought (e.g. calculus or topology). To say that something "depends on" natural language does not mean that it can be explained easily in everyday language -- that is fallacious reasoning. 12:06, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

So to claim that something cannot be explained in simple words means the same as to say that some people talk about things which they have no idea about themselves. - isn't that exactly what Hegel suggests in his "who thinks abstractly"? 217.25.194.150 07:12, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

I think that I agree with you if I understand what you're saying, which I may not. I believe that Hegel is claiming that in general people talk using abstractions that they think they understand but really don't, because they haven't examined the contradictions between these abstractions and what they actually mean, and between the abstractions and what the abstractions claim to be about. So, for example, they think they're being capturing particulars by saying "here" and "now", when these terms are abstractions and universals. Or they think they know what they mean when they talk about Being without realizing that in the way they're talking about it, Being is the same as Nothingness. So, yes, people talk about things which they have no idea about themselves, because they don't realize the contradictions hidden in the simple, such that what they mean isn't what they think they mean, and the "simple" (and "unmediated") is actually complex (and "mediated"). Is this congruent with what you're saying? Jeremy J. Shapiro 07:35, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

"...his work can be perplexing for modern audiences because he had a teleological and rationalistic view of human society and history that are at odds with current post-modernist intellectual trends."

Difficult because it is not postmodern? Hardly. Those texts that one may consider postmodern are often the most difficult to read. The justification for the seemingly 'difficult' (rewarding?) nature of Hegel's works is due partly to the statement that follows the above, namely:

"Specifically, Hegel developed a new form of logic which he called, 'speculative logic,' and which is today popularly called, 'dialectics,' which remains largely undeveloped in the direction that Hegel intended. A new form of logic will tend to be complex and this makes Hegel's writings famously difficult to read."

Should the anachronist postmodern comparison be left out? --Valve 19:19, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Good point. Will do, I think I'll just change it to "recent". Jeremy J. Shapiro 19:29, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

What do you think: Is philosophy a _science_ (like mathematics or physics) or is it an _art_ (like literature or music) ? If you say that philosophy is a science, then you accept that it follows some certain rules. One of these rules is: Every statement within a field of science is a statement within a natural language which can be reduced to simpler statements. This reduction will end in some basic statements, consisting of simple words. This is a fact. How else could students of any science be led from the basics of any science to its top ? But if you consider philosophy as an art -- now, then everything is allowed. Hans Rosenthal (ROHA) (hans.rosenthal AT t-online.de -- replace AT by @ ) (19112005)

I'm so glad you articulated this, because now I understand much more clearly your earlier statements. I think that most philosophers in the whole history of philosophy would agree that it's neither of the options you've set out, which most contemporary philosophers would describe as an outmoded form of positivism. I think that most philosophers (and I would agree with them) would say that it's a kind of science of a completely different kind than what you've described, but is rather a meta-discourse that reflects on but goes beyond the framework of either the sciences or art. One way to discuss this would be for you to provide the grounds, foundation, or justification for your statement "One of these rules is: Every statement within a field of science is a statement within a natural language which can be reduced to simpler statements." What is the rationale or grounding for this? Jeremy J. Shapiro 04:10, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

You uttered a chain of signs of the alphabet. From all these signs I pick up the only useful chain: "What is the rationale or grounding for this? " -- And I answer: How can you anderstand this sentence if you do not rely on the basics of the natural language ? Which are simple words and their combinations. Please do not make a fool of yourself. Hans Rosenthal (ROHA) (hans.rosenthal AT t-online.de -- replace AT by @ ) (19112005)

I won't respond to any comments containing insults. Jeremy J. Shapiro 21:35, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Then, Jeremy, let me show our Hans the mirror side of dialectics, making clear, that he was talking only to himself, because he admitted to be unable to understand you.

The answer is very simple. We just have to be aware that "Begriff" means more than "concept"; it can be used as a synonym to "Wort" ("word") too. Hegel formulates a new concept of philosophy that is thinking the logic of the ideas as the universal origin and meaning of every word in every language. While Hans is still using languages without thinking, the real philosopher not only knows *what* his words are meaning, but also *why* these words have this specific meaning and how they are linked to the totality of thought.

Jan. (14 June 2006 AD, 14:35 MESZ)

[edit] mentioning analytic philosophy

Regarding this edit, I think that it would be appropriate to mention that Analytic philosophy was founded with G E Moore's and Russell's rejection of British Idealism. — goethean ॐ 17:40, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

good point. Jeremy J. Shapiro 18:40, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Advocates section

There are numerous factual errors, incorrect statements, and problems in the 'Advocates' section. To mention only a few that immediately strike me:

1) The section needs to be completely reorganized. It is in no discernable order.

2) I'm not so sure that 'Advocates' really captures the subject-matter under discussion in this section. Are these folks really advocates? I think it might be a bit of stretch to call Lukacs, Fukuyama, or Brandom (to mention a few) 'Hegel Advocates'. Maybe I'm fretting over trivial semantics, but is there not a better term? Thoughts? Anything but 'Friends of Hegel'.

3) The sentence: The works of U.S. neoconservative Francis Fukuyama's controversial book The End of History and the Last Man was heavily influenced by a famous Hegel interpreter from the Marxist school, Alexandre Kojève.

A. I find it odd that Kojève's only mention here is in relation to Fukuyama. Kojève's reading of Hegel had a profound influence on many thinkers who were rethinking Hegel again for the first time in the 20th Century (most notably Sartre). Perhaps something more could be said about Kojève here...if we are talking about Hegel's 'Advocates' or those that shaped the reading of Hegel.

B. The sentence here just doesn't make any sense (I'll change that right now).

4) The sentence: Beginning in the 1990's, after the fall of the USSR, a fresh reading of Hegel took place in the West. For these scholars, fairly well represented by the Hegel Society of America in cooperation with German scholars such as Otto Poeggler and Walter Jaeschke, Hegel's works should be read without preconceptions. Marx plays a minor role in these new readings, and actually some contemporary scholars have suggested that Marx's interpretation of Hegel is irrelevant to a proper reading of Hegel.

A. If there was a so-called fresh reading of Hegel in the 20th Century, it happened well in advance of the 1990's. In fact, the most influential English-language literature on Hegel in the 20th century was published decades before the 1990's. See, Findlay and Hartmann (to mention only two who injected new life in Hegel's work) and more recently Pippin, Pinkard, Taylor et al. - who published influential works on Hegel well before the 1990's. Although to say beginning in the 1990's is not completely incorrect, I think it should be changed to something more general. Thoughts on this?

B. The meaning of 'fresh reading' is the insight that 'Hegel's philosophy should be read without preconceptions'? This makes no sense. For it seems to assume that prior to the 1990's that Hegel scholarship consciously read Hegel with preconceptions and that some sort of breakthrough occured when scholarship realized it shouldn't read with preconceptions. An odd sentence.

C. On a related note, I think that the claim that Hegel scholarship prior to 1990 had been reading Hegel through the lense of Marx is just wrong. By 1990, there was already a sort of new orthodoxy in regard to Hegel scholarship that in no way relied on Marx (although this is not to say that there were those who didn't insist on Marx as being the truth of Hegel). Also, the claim that 'some have ACTUALLY' suggested...that Marx's interp is irrelevant to a proper reading of Hegel'? I do not think that even Marx himself would suggest that reading Marx is a substitute for reading Hegel himself nor do I think that any serious scholarship engaged in the project of trying to 'read' or 'interpret' Hegel's actual philosophical position would or has suggested this. The ACTUALLY implies that this is some sort of revelation or dramatic insight in scholarship when I don't think any sort of interpretive trend like this existed in the first place.

5) Since 1990 new aspects of Hegel's philosophy have been published that were not typically seen in the West. Here is one example: the essence of Hegel's philosophy is the idea of Freedom. With the idea of Freedom Hegel attempts to explain world history, fine art, political science, the free thinking that is science, the attainments of spirituality and the resolution to problems of metaphysics.

A. Which 'aspects' (perhaps manuscripts?) were published?

B. This entire paragraph is just grossly wrong and probably needs to be deleted.

6) I will make some minor changes, but I'd like to open this up for discussion before I do anything major. Besides, after writing all of this, I just don't have the time to make the changes right now. Looking forward to hearing everyone's ideas. --MalcolmMcC 17:30, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree with your points and support your intention to make changes based on what you've written. Jeremy J. Shapiro 17:43, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

The most important thing, in my opinion, is that before any major revisions are made, we are very clear about what we want this section to be about. Is this about interpreters of Hegel, those who have been influenced by Hegel, both, more than this? I can understand including both interpreters and those who work in a style of philosophy or etc. that is heavily influenced by Hegel - the two are often one and the same. There seems to be alot of work to be done here. And, from what I've seen only in the past month or so, this page is taking a turn in the right direction. --MalcolmMcC 18:12, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

I just noticed that this section says that the centrality of the idea of freedom in Hegel's thought has only emerged in the 1990's! This is nonsense, since it has always been explicitly central to his thought. Even people who have read nothing else by Hegel than the introduction to the philosophy of history in college know that. In any case, I agree with MalcolmMcC that there's no point fooling around with this section until we know what the point of it is, and I agree that "detractors" and "advocates" is not the right point, that makes it sound like a popularity contest, and that if anything it should include the notions of both influence and critique,, and these, too, can be one and the same. For example, Adorno was one of those most influenced by Hegel -- and one of his most fundamental critics (same with Marx). Jeremy J. Shapiro 13:59, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Although the centrality of freedom has always been explicit in Hegel's thought, the misinterpretation of Hegel's thought for the past 150 years should be famous by now. Petrejo 04:28, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Haha, I just realized that the "Advocates" and "Detractors" sections are like Hegel's thesis and antithesis (with my limited understanding of them). I don't know if this was intentional or not, but it's kind of funny. FranksValli 11:27, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps it would be more helpful to focus on the 'Renaissance' that has occured in Hegel scholarship since the mid 20th Century. This could tie in quite well with a discussion of the dismal quality of Hegel scholarship, particularly the misunderstandings fostered by Marx and Popper (among many, many others; google Jon Stewart's "The Hegel Myths and Legends"). Nessundorma19 1213, August 7, 2006

[edit] Perhaps a simple text error. Perhaps not?

The very first sentence of this article, containing up to three quotes, seems to be repeating itself. Or am I just missing some hidden message meant for higher intellects?

Fixed — goethean ॐ 15:54, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Infobox

The one responsible for this seems to fill it just by names of philosophers which s/he is aware of, but not by facts. The facts are, that Wikipedia is not a sandbox (though it has one awailable for you), but an "Encyclopedia", and all the contributors are trying to make it "the best encyclopedia that anyone can find". Which also includes that you should not add anything that is blankly wrong, or something which can not meet the rules of this Wikipedia. Hans Rosenthal (ROHA) (hans.rosenthal AT t-online.de -- replace AT by @ ) (24012006)

That box's list does seem rather arbitrary. But that's perhaps in the nature of the format, because almost any western philosopher born subsequent to 1820 might be included! --Christofurio 20:37, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree that the format necessarily makes it a little simplistic. Which names are we discussing? I would remove Bruno Bauer, Hermann Heller, and Ferdinand Lassalle, who are minor figures, but the rest seem correct to me. — goethean ॐ 21:00, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

I disagree firmly that Bruno Bauer is a minor figure. Bauer was a tutor to Karl Marx when Marx was 19. Bauer was a mentor to Nietzsche when Nietzsche was 22. Bauer was one of Hegel's favored pupils. If that's not enough, then consider this: August Cieszkowski (1842) thought Bruno Bauer’s writings were as important as the Reformation itself. Arnold Ruge (1843) compared Bauer’s works with Voltaire and Rousseau. Moses Hess (1845) thought Bauer stood at the head of the Young Hegelians. Karl Rosenkranz (1854) said that of the Young Hegelians, Bauer was undoubtedly the most important in character, culture and talent. William Wrede (1860) compared Bauer favorably to Lessing. Ernst Barnikol (1927) called Bauer the most consistent humanist of modern times and one who advocated a pure spiritual outlook. Yet Bauer's genius was cut short by a right-wing ban (1843) by the Prussian monarch, followed by a left-wing ban (1848) by Marx and Engels. In 1937 Walter Nigg recognized that Bauer's name is cited in nearly every single 19th century book on theology -- and yet there was no monograph on his own life and work! Probably this was due to the overestimation of Marx on the one hand and an overestimation of Prussian authority on the other. Petrejo 04:26, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hermetic Hegel

Considering the amount of material available on the purported influences of Hermeticism (see Glenn Alexander Magee's "Hegel and the Hermetic Tradition" [1]) and other western-esoteric trends to Hegel's philosophy, shouldn't this perspective also be included? I'm in the middle of studying this properly right now, otherwise I would make the additions myself. Anyone out there who has a better grasp on this [potentially significant] issue? - Herr K 21:00, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Fascinating! Thanks for the link. — goethean ॐ 21:41, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

GA Magee misrepresents Hegel thoroughly. There's nothing Occult in the slightest in Hegel's philosophy. His SCIENCE OF LOGIC (1812) is a new manner of approaching the Kantian Antinomy. It's presented as a scientific contribution to formal logic. McGee doesn't have a clue about the facts, and attempts to sensationalize concepts from haphazard snippets. Read Hegel yourself. That's my advice, *especially* if you want to add to a Wikipedia article with true NPOV. The secondary literature about Hegel has been *awful* for 150 years. Not until the Hegel Society of America with its German academic cohorts, has the West finally begun to grasp this innovator in the science of logic. Petrejo 06:07, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Read Hegel yourself? But, Hegel didn't want to be understood. He wanted to impress and obfuscate. Open his books and see for yourself.66.82.9.54 18:20, 9 August 2006 (UTC)Lestrade

Thanks for the advice. Given your attempted additions to the Nietzsche article, I'll consider the source. — goethean ॐ 14:50, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

By all means, Goethean, refrain from ever reading Hegel directly if you prefer. Why raise the bar over Nietzsche's head? Petrejo 03:39, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] request for help from Hegel experts

In the first part of the Phenomenology of Spirit, Hegel writes of the labor of the negative. Can anyone recommend any exceptionally lucid explanations of this concept, aimed for a gneeral audience? Thanks, Slrubenstein | Talk 12:47, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Walter Kainz' book, GWF HEGEL, THE SYSTEM (1996), Twayne Publishers, is probably your best bet. Petrejo 06:03, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] intro

He is best known for attempting to elaborate a comprehensive and systematic ontology from a logical starting point.

He is? In my experience, he is best known for being the most important, systematic, or creative German idealist. — goethean ॐ 14:51, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Then perhaps you should familiarize yourself with Hegel's writings directly, Goethean. Hegel's Science of Logic (1812) is an innovative blend of logic and metaphysics, and features Hegel's dialectical improvement of Anselm's Ontological Proof.Petrejo 04:04, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Elaborating "a comprehensive ontology from a logical starting point" means conjuring up an actual individual person or object from a mere concept or its verbal designation. That is, magically making a thing out of a thought. Anselm tried it with his Ontological Proof. Hegel learned the trick and had a great success with his audience.69.19.14.28 12:54, 11 August 2006 (UTC)Lestrade

Ouch, the truth hurts, huh? Poor Hegel the Dilettante; that isn't ontology! Some body 17:41, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

User:Some body, are you syntax-challenged or have you merely been reading too much Hegel?Lestrade 01:23, 15 August 2006 (UTC)Lestrade

It's great to know my comment wasn't lost on you! Some body 05:30, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

...It's lost on me. User:Nessundorma19, 1643 EST August 15 2006

Are these two points mutually exclusive? It seems almost absurd to reduce Hegel's philosophy to one achievement. User:Nessundorma19, 1219 August 7 2006

[edit] The Scary picture

Man, the front pic is scary. U guys, we really need a better, less creepy pic. People are covering their right eyes when reading this article. - Orz 21:20, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

I changed it to the current version, which does look creepy, but not as bad as this (right) in my opinion. Maybe there are no good pictures of Hegel? Anyhow, maybe we could revert it back to this black and white one if the current color one is too intense. FranksValli 01:16, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

C'mon guys, there's some great pictures of Hegel out there. For example, here: http://hegel.net/en/gallery.htm Petrejo 03:49, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Before the invention of the fast photograph, people did not feel obligated to grin or smile falsely. They just relaxed their faces. You are spoiled by seeing wrinkly-nosed, open-mouthed, piano-toothed, undignified photographs.66.82.9.54 18:16, 9 August 2006 (UTC)Lestrade

[edit] Synonyms

Hegels' Absolute Geist (Spirit/Mind) is very reminiscent of Berkeley's God. What else did Hegel take from Berkeley?66.82.9.54 18:11, 9 August 2006 (UTC)Lestrade

[edit] controversial commentary removed

I removed the following passage from the end of the "Life and Work" section:

"His work also can be perplexing for modern audiences because he had a teleological and rationalistic view of human society and history that are at odds with recent intellectual trends. And for English readers there is the additional challenge posed by the difficulty of translating his terminology and idiom into English."

The first sentence is, at best, misleading. To someone who is unfamiliar with Hegel's concept of "reason," it mistakenly suggests that Hegel applies, in some fashion, a set of abstract categories to human society in a way that we have since learned to repudiate. It is almost impossible to read the Phenomenology in this way. The invocation of teleology is also misleading in that it suggests that Hegel posits an external End somewhere out in the future toward which we can see society moving. This is hardly his position. Hegelian phenomenology is a retrospective philosophy: it does interpret experience teleological in that it acknowledges the 'necessity' of its own standpoint, i.e., that it cannot help but to understand history from its own particular position; but it does not interpret the present in terms of any as-yet unrealized End.

The second sentence about the difficulties of translation just struck me as banal. For what philosophical or literary text in translation does this not obtain? To state it in this general way implies the acknowledgement that some passages in the translation are nonsense and that we can be excused for glossing over whatever disagrees with us in his text without impugning the intelligence of Hegel or the soundness of his philosophy.

--PJ

I agree with PJ, and think he can change the opening sentence in regard to "reason" and "telos". I think to cover what might be omitted one might have to include Hegel's sense of positivism, the absolute and progress which might be opposed to more contemporary ideas of discontinuity and rupture and, unlike Hegel, leave "might is right" and naturalistic arguments and fallacies, without an alibi. His idea of progress does not apply only retrospectively.

--Lucaas.

[edit] Philophia?

Philophia (par. 1) perennis gets a few google hits, but I have never heard this word. Is it the same as, or different from Philosophia? Or a typo? Andrew K Robinson 19:44, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

The concept of philophia was used frequently in the profound lectures of the Hegelian Professor Irwin Corey, who always enjoyed an overflowing auditorium at his university.Lestrade 11:46, 16 September 2006 (UTC)Lestrade

[edit] Hegel Introduction

I found two misleading points in the introduction.

The first problem is that the statments are much too strong since, before Hegel Vico, Hamann, and Herder "introduced" history or at least dealt with history in significant ways, especially in relation to the development of culture and language.

The second problem is that it is widely known that Hegel was not the first to deal with the "Other". In fact, Fichte deals with the "Other" in his Foundations of Natural Right (1776) in terms of mutual recognition and self-consciousness.

What is perahps unique about Hegel is the systematic ways in which the handles history and the other. I'm not sure how this should be changed, and since it is the introduction I did not want to make any changes without some discussion. --Gottg135 15:10, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

I think here Herder et al. were influential but not sure how "philosophic" they were, Hegel's wins for philosophicness, and it does say "for the first time in philosophy". I wouldnt be against adding references to them though. Fichte did bring in the "Other" but then again so did Kant, in a way, with his idea of a shared reason. Hegel did them in spades though and nobody doubts that he was influenced. Nor would I say systematic, the myth of slavery is closer to literature than to a system.--Lucaas 03:46, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hegel's Secret

I respectfully intend to overcome my awe and reverence for the great Hegel by adding, to the article, a few sentences about James Hutchison Stirling and his Hegelian influence on British philosophy. Stirling's book was titled The Secret of Hegel. This publication took a mere 751 pages to explain Hegel's thoughts about the Absolute (God). But, then, prolixity and logorrhea are characteristics that are dear to us as Hegelians, left, center, and right. Supposedly, the secret can be epitomized by the sentence, "Hegel made explicit the concrete universal that was implicit in Kant." It should not be surprising, given Hegel's taste for neologism, that the words "concrete" and "universal" mean here only what Hegel arbitrarily wanted them to mean, which was God. Hegel's Fichtean Dialectical three-step process had an unintended confirmation when English analytical philosophy developed as an antithetical attempt to rid philosophy of Hegel's compulsive obscurity and crude religiosity.Lestrade 18:50, 22 August 2006 (UTC)Lestrade

To call oneself a Hegelian and simultaneously claim that there is something called Hegel's Fichtean Dialectical three-step process" demonstrates a superficial understanding of Hegel and Hegelianism.

1.) Hegel, rarely if ever used the terms thesis, antithesis, sythesis.(and Marx, for his part, rightly refers to as "wooden trichotomies".)

2.) as Walter Kaufman rightly argues: "Whoever looks for the stereotype of the allegedly Hegelian dialectic in Hegel's Phenomenology will not find it. What one does find on looking at the table of contents is a very decided preference for triadic arrangements. … But these many triads are not presented or deduced by Hegel as so many theses, antitheses, and syntheses. It is not by means of any dialectic of that sort that his thought moves up the ladder to absolute knowledge." —Walter Kaufmann, Hegel: A Reinterpretation, § 37, Anchor Books, 1966.

3.) the whole theses, antitheses, and syntheses line of thinking suggests a formula or recipe. Something to be applied. As if one could simply answer the fundamental questions of metaphysics. in this way: Does God exist. God does not exist, God might exist. For Hegel and later Marx the "contradiction" as such is due to inherent pressures and stresses in the underlying pattern of development of, for Hegel, the Idea, for Marx the "mode of life"

Spiker 22 (talk)

[edit] Blatant Marx bias

I don't really care about the quality of this article, but those who do may want to remove the bias in favor of Marx. I suspect that the authors are either entrenched in academia, where Marx wields a vast influence and is typically assumed as truth, or young college students, who aspire to be academics.

From "Left and Right Hegelianism":

"Though Marx had certain objections to Hegel's philosophy however, he never repudiated it as some have claimed. Even late in life he called himself "a pupil of that great thinker." Also, contrary to a widespread misconception, perpetuated by dilettantism and in general poor scholarship, Marx never claimed that he stood Hegel on his head. Rather, he claimed that in Hegel's philosophy the truth stands on its head and he (Marx) turned it right side up. By this Marx meant that Hegel's philosophy contained all of the true content, but was perverted by a form that encouraged the reconciliation of the subject with the world in thought over the subject changing the world in action. It is not correct therefore to present Marxism, or existentialism for that matter, as anti-Hegelian, except in a qualified sense."

"perpetuated by dilettantism and in general poor scholarship" - this should set off warning signals for anyone interested in writing an article with even the most modest claim of objectivity.

The paragraph I quoted is bad because: 1) It has no content regarding Marx's differences from Hegel, only oddly defensive claims whose goal seems to be presenting Marx as transcending Hegel. 2) What Marx claimed is irrelevant. He is general considered "anti-Hegelian" because he believed the material factors of society determined the politics and culture, whereas Hegel believed that culture (spirit) determined the politics and material factors. The wiki author is correct in saying that Marx shouldn't be considered purely anti-Hegelian, because Marx used Hegel as a framework. But Marx did disagree with core principles of Hegel's philosophy.

For those interested in the relation between Marx and Hegel, I direct you to Petrejo's comments from this page: "Shouldn't we yawn when Marxists wave the Hegel flag so broadly?" Marx basically paid homage Hegel in order to legitimize his bastardized, infantile, and demonstrably false rantings on economics and politics. Namely, the "exploitation of labor" (disproved by basic math, negates free will) and that the material factors of society determine everything else (negates free will). Ironically, in the same way Marx appeals to Hegel to legitimize himself, Lenin and Stalin would later appeal to Marx to legitimize their ruthless power grabs.

Straw men are fun aren't they! Much better than actually having to read what a given author wrote. For example, Marx never believed that "the material factors of society determine everything else. It is laughable to claim that Marx needed Hegel to legitimize his ideas; not that Hegel is by any means an inferior thinker- Can you substantiate your claim "Marx appeals to Hegel to legitimize himself" Some quotes perhaps? How about some quotes dealing with Marx's alledged belief "that the material factors of society determine everything else" Better yet let us see the basic math that demonstrates that Marx's "exploitation of labor"??? is false. After all, it was pretty much Marx's point that free will was negated by capitalism.

In Mathematics one has to have their terms clearly defined and by implication know what those terms are. 

If we take the statement ", the "exploitation of labor" (disproved by basic math, negates free will)" we can safely assume the author has no knowledge of the subject matter he is discussing.

 To be sure, the concept of the exploitaion of labor is central to Marxism and it rests upon the
validity of Marx's concept of surplus value. in the first volume of Capital this is described as
an "increment or excess over the original value" invested in production.  For Marx and his followers this was and is contributed by labor. Roughly labor as a social or collective effort makes this contribution in exchange for an ever decreasing compensation. The capacity for labor becomes a commodity for the first time under capitalism. Moreover, the discretion of capital is iherently exploitive of labor.  The individual owner's wealth and ownership is created by Labor.

The question, in this context is whether labor creates this "increment or excess over the original value" invested in production and whether its compensation is "just". Commenting on this point, Economist, Thomas Sowell* observes that this was an "assumption deeply embedded in classical economics" an assumption devastated by the new conceptions and analyses introduced by neo-classical economics while Capital was in its decades-long process of being prepared for publication. And later summs up "Once output is seen as a function of numerous inputs, and the inputs are supplied by more than one class of people, the notion that surplus value arises from [the] labor [of the proletariat] becomes plainly arbitrary and unsupported (192). In short marxism is a failure to understand or appreciate certain economic phenomena.

 Sowell Later writes "Marxism has taught many--inside and outside its ranks--to sneer at capitalism, at inconvenient facts or contrary interpretations, and thus ultimately to sneer at the intellectual process itself. This has been one of its enduring strengths as a political doctrine, as a means of acquiring and using political power in unbridled ways (208-9).
One can not help but think that those who can make statements like the following are, in a manner of speaking followers of Marx:
"Marx basically paid homage Hegel (SIC) in order to legitimize his bastardized,(SIC) infantile, and demonstrably (SIC) false rantings on economics and politics."

• Thomas Sowell Marxism: Philosophy and Economics

Spiker 22 (talk)

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.33.1.37 (talk) 09:30, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "Detractors" Section - Removed Statement

I have deleted the statement "In addition to this, misconceptions about Hegel's new method of thinking had reached new heights during the anti-communist period, when Hegel was perceived as belonging to the Marxist camp." This statement is highly POV in its attempt to label certain unmentioned ideas about Hegel's philosophy as "misconceptions"; it does not say WHEN or WHERE these so-called "misconceptions" arose nor who generated or espoused them nor give evidence that these supposed "misconceptions" reached "new heights", and then arbitrarily decides whether Hegel does or does not belong to the "Marxist camp". Hi There 05:33, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Portait

If we keep getting nicer portraits, Hegel will begin to resemble Pierce Brosnan with a Hollywood smile.Lestrade 00:28, 5 October 2006 (UTC)Lestrade

== Owl of Minerva ==

The content below was in its own article, but since it basically consists of 2 quotes, it really doesn't have enough context. I'm not sure where exactly this could go, but it seems like good content. The page itself is currently a redirect to this article, so whoever does something with the text might want to change that as well. Kerowyn ^{Leave a note} 10:51, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

First, I don't agree with your redirect -- the Owl of Minerva does indeed deserve its own article. It is perhaps one of the most important concepts in late German philosophy. Second, I have removed your copy and paste of an encyclopedia article on this talk page. - Abscissa 16:15, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Georg_Wilhelm_Friedrich_Hegel&action=edit&section=35#

A few edits to Life and Work (and opening para)

My changes are stylistic except for the following:

Current discussion of early interests of Hegel vs. those of Holderlin/Schelling implies that Hegel wasn't interested in Kant. Text, however, states he was, but just in a more popular vein. I tried to clarify this.

I deleted statement that a course given by Schopenhauer (1788-1860) at Jena "at the same time" as Hegel (at Jena 1801-06) had no attendees. Whaddya want, the kid was just a teenager, for crying out loud!  :) Something wrong here. It's an unnecessary tangent anyhow.

Last paragraph: Hegel did try to develop a new form of thinking and logic, no "supposedly" about it. The controversy is whether he succeeded. Also, Hegel always makes clear that "speculative" and "dialectic" are different. We shouldn't be confusing the two.

Opening paragraph: I qualified the absoluteness of the statements about Hegel's "great achievement."

Hope these changes help.

Aldrichio 15:26, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Hegel shouldn't be categorized as Logician

I oppose Hegel's inclusion in this category.

True: Hegel called parts of his philosophy "logic".

True: There are no completely precise and universally accepted criteria as to what is and what isn't logic.

But: The parts of Hegel's philosophical output which he called "logic" are so dramatically different from what anybody else in the category Logicians produced, and from the methodological standards anybody else in the category upheld, that Hegel shouldn't be in there. Calling something "logic" does not make it logic.

--Skon 16:03, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

All logicians (and empiricists and positivists generally) should read Hegel's Science of Logic and blush at their own unexamined assumptions (the ones they tacitly accept by reading in a narrow tradition). Of course Hegel should be in the category. 62.64.235.16 16:38, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

This may be true, but it does not justify the categorization. For even if it were true that logicians "should" read Hegel, that does not make Hegel a logician.

By the way, being a logician does not imply being a positivist or empiricist.

--Skon 14:25, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Influences and Influenced

I have started a discussion regarding the Infobox Philosopher template page concerning the "influences" and "influenced" fields. I am in favor of doing away with them. Please join the discussion there. RJC ^Talk 14:15, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bot edit war?

Wow, this is the first time I've seen an edit war between bots. Franklin Dmitryev 12:09, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Incorrect reference to Spinoza?

The reference to Spinoza in the Wikipedia article on Hegel, apparently saying Spinoza (like Hegel) believed in freedom, may conflict with the Wikipedia article on Spinoza, apparently saying Spinoza believed everything is deterministic.

If Hegel and Spinoza defined freedom vs. determinism differently, this should be clarified.

Collin237 06:59, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Schopenhauer and Hegel in love???

In the section regarding Hegel's detractors the following statement appears regarding Schopenhauer's dislike of Hegel,

"Arthur Schopenhauer despised Hegel on account of the latter's alleged historicism, among other reasons most notable of which was their turmoltuous and unevenly felt love affair during Schopenhauer's short tenure as a professor at the University of Berlin."

Is this true?? If Schopenhauer and Hegel did have a love affair, some reference should be given to the source of this information. I am not enough of an expert on the biographies of either of these people to know whether or not this statement is true, but it is strange that it is not mentioned in the biography of Schopenhauer. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tfscott (talk • contribs) 01:35, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

LOL, it's obvious vandalism. For one thing, Schopenhauer couldn't stand Hegel. I've removed it. FilipeS (talk) 23:43, 13 December 2007 (UTC) from the page

[edit] Hegel's Absolute

There is a bit here quoting Nietzsche's criticism of Hegel's idea of the Absolute, but no section about what Hegel's view of the Absolute actually is. Could this problem with a very interesting article be rectified? Fledgeaaron (talk) 15:42, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Be bold and add the info you believe belongs in the article. That is how the article becomes better, individual editors, such as yourself, identifies a deficiency in the article, finds sources for the intended change and chnges the article, with sources. If you insert new info without sources, the info may be tagged as needing sources or might be removed as unsourced. Good luck Jons63 (talk) 15:53, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

If you are looking for clarification, you came to the wrong place. Hegel's philosophy is obscurity par excellence, and proud of it. Remember, he claimed that the Owl of Minerva flies at night (in the dark).Lestrade (talk) 00:17, 6 May 2008 (UTC)Lestrade

[edit] Whim

In the main article, nothing is said about the fact that Hegel changed 8 to 16 on whim in his 1800 effort. The same effort is not worth reading, whether it bans the discovery of Ceres or not. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.141.242.167 (talk) 13:07, 31 December 2007 (UTC) Professor Neuser says "Spectral analysis ... was unknown at the time." Even with modern spectroscopic evidence, there is still doubt as to whether Chiron is a minor planet or a comet. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.152.174.243 (talk) 12:36, 8 January 2008 (UTC) Neuser made the remark to try and minimise the way Ceres discredited Hegel. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.194.4.21 (talk) 09:42, 10 January 2008 (UTC) Gauss made remarks similar to those of 86.141.242.167.His remarks are quoted in the main article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.194.4.21 (talk) 10:36, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Balance section

The "Balance" section boldly claims to have found the reasons why so many well–known philosophers opposed Hegel. Several dogmatic and categorical statements are made without reference to published literature. It's a Hegelian synthesis that tries to neatly resolve the negative judgments that have been made against Hegel by renowned thinkers.Lestrade (talk) 01:10, 24 January 2008 (UTC)Lestrade

Yeah, it seems rather biased, and has no citation. Perhaps additional information on Professor Jon Stewart's work would improve it? 163.1.162.20 (talk) 00:25, 26 January 2008 (UTC)