Beiser - Hegel

Hegel

An impressive achievement... I have no doubt students will find it very useful, and that it will be widely adopted as a teaching text: it covers the right topics to the right level; it engages with a wide range of Hegels works; it is critical, while also being sympathetic.

Robert Stern, Sheffield University, UK

... the best available account in the English language of the whole sweep of Hegels philosophy. It will be a valuable resource for students encountering Hegel for the first time.

Sean Sayers, University of Kent, UK

A very clear introduction... its greatest strengths consist in its clarity and its ability to contextualize Hegels philosophy... masterfully done the presentation is clear and engaging.

Paul Redding, University of Sydney, Australia

Routledge Philosophers

Edited by Brian Leiter

University of Texas, Austin

Routledge Philosophers is a major series of introductions to the great Western philosophers. Each book places a major philosopher or thinker in historical context, explains and assesses their key arguments, and considers their legacy. Additional features include a chronology of major dates and events, chapter summaries, annotated suggestions for further reading and a glossary of technical terms.

An ideal starting point for those new to philosophy, they are also essential reading for those interested in the subject at any level.

Forthcoming:

Frederick Beiser

Hegel

First published 2005 in the USA and Canada

by Routledge

270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016

Simultaneously published in the UK

by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxfordshire, OX14 4RN

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group

2005 Frederick Beiser

Typeset in Joanna MT and DIN by

RefineCatch Ltd, Bungay, Suffolk

Printed and bound in Great Britain by

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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Beiser, Frederick C., 1949

Hegel / Frederick Beiser. 1st ed.

p. cm.(Routledge philosophers)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 0415312078 (hardback : alk. paper) ISBN 0415312086 (pbk. : alk. paper)

1. Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 17701831. I. Title. II. Series.

B2948.B43 2005

193dc22

2004020256

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalog record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 0415312078 (hbk)

ISBN 0415312086 (pbk)

To my Hegel students: past, present and future

Preface

The main purpose of this book is to provide a comprehensive introduction to Hegels philosophy, one that covers, as far as possible in a confined space, every major aspect of his thought. Although I hope it can be read with profit by Hegel scholars, it has been written primarily with a first-time reader in mind. I do not consider, therefore, some of the usual problems of Hegel scholarship, such as the detailed transitions of the dialectic or the interrelations between different parts of the system. Although these are important issues, they should not have priority in an introduction where the primary goal is to provide an overview of Hegels philosophy.

Since my chief aim is introductory, my focus has been thematic rather than textual. I want the student to know the main themes of Hegels philosophy rather than the content of specific texts. With the exception of Chapter Seven, I have not engaged in sustained exegesis or commentary. There are many good commentaries on Hegels Phenomenology, Logic and Philosophy of Right, to which the reader is referred in the Bibliography. The chief reason for the exegetical foray in Chapter Seven will be apparent to every Hegel scholar and student. The Lordship and Bondage chapter of the Phenomenology is central to Hegels entire project, yet its meaning has been much disputed. It is likely that every student, sooner or later, will have to read this famous chapter. A close reading of it is therefore a necessity, even for an introduction. It was entirely appropriate when Alexander Kojve entitled his famous commentary on this chapter Introduction to the Reading of Hegel.

Although I have striven for comprehensive coverage, limitations of space have made it impossible for me to treat important aspects of Hegels philosophy. Much more needs to be said about Hegels Science of Logic, not least because of its foundational role in Hegels system. I do not accept the current criticisms of Hegels logic, and believe that it should be restored into its central place in Hegels system; but, for reasons of space, I have had to limit myself to rebutting a few misunderstandings and to sketching its dialectical method (pp. 1639). I have also done scant justice to Hegels Naturphilosophie, which is crucial for his entire philosophy, especially his attempt to justify the organic concept of the world. Finally, Hegels epistemology deserves much more attention; doing it full justice, however, would have unduly lengthened an already long introduction. For this reason, an earlier chapter on Hegels reaction to the Grundsatzkritik and meta-critical campaign of the 1790s was dropped.

This book is the product of three decades of reflection on Hegel and his contemporaries. I first began to study Hegel in the early 1970s at Oxford, the dawn of the Hegel renaissance in the Anglophone world. My study of Hegel first came from an interest in the intellectual sources of Marxism, but gradually evolved into a general fascination for classical German philosophy. I wrote my Oxford DPhil on the origins of Hegels Phenomenology under the supervision of Charles Taylor, a model Doktorvater, to whom I have many debts. I shelved my plans to write a detailed commentary on the Phenomenology when I first learned of Henry Harriss similar project, which finally bore such marvelous fruit in Hegels Ladder.

All the material for this book is new, written especially for this series. An early version of Chapter Seven appeared in my 1980 DPhil. dissertation, The Spirit of the Phenomenology, but it has been revised heavily since then. Some of the material in Chapters One and Three has appeared in my The Romantic Imperative: The Concept of Early German Romanticism (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003). Some work on Chapters Eight and Nine, and the epilogue, began as an article on Hegels political philosophy, which was due to appear in 1994 in the