the phenomenology of spirit (2024)

The Revised Introduction to HEGEL'S PHENOMENOLOGY OF SPIRIT - complete, in 9 Lectures and 36 Videos

2024 •

Professor Ken S . Foldes

This is an important and detailed REVISION of my previous publication of "An Introduction to Hegel’s PHENOMENOLOGY OF SPIRIT." The Phenomenology is the Introduction to Hegel’s System of Absolute Science. My Introduction is based on a series of lectures I gave during the Spring semester of 2019 at St. John’s University and which also contains LINKS to the 36 videos that accompany my lectures. This module will contain 9 LECTURES with 4 parts to each lecture. LECTURE ONE will be an Introduction and Overview, including Hegel’s famous “Introduction” to the Phenomenology; LECTURE TWO will treat “A: CONSCIOUSNESS”; LECTURE THREE “B: SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS”; LECTURE FOUR “C: AA: REASON: A: Observing Reason”; LECTURE FIVE “C: AA: REASON: B: Active Reason and C: Practical Reason”; LECTURE SIX “C: BB: SPIRIT: A: True Spirit and B: Self-Alienated Spirit”; LECTURE SEVEN “C: BB: SPIRIT: C: Spirit Certain of Itself”; LECTURE EIGHT “C: CC: RELIGION: A: Natural Religion, B: Religion in the Form of Art, and C: The Revealed Religion”; and lastly LECTURE NINE “C: DD: ABSOLUTE KNOWLEDGE.

Feminine consciousness and Greek spirit in Hegel

2009 •

Heather Macquarrie

FEMININE CONSCIOUSNESS AND GREEK SPIRIT IN HEGEL Hegel's inherently universal conception of modern subjectivity recognizes the principle of the modern subject is "the self-sufficient and inherently infinite personality of the individual." Hegel's deepest and most genuine intentions require all humanity to lead a universal life of full and concrete personhood in accordance with the definition of human nature as a concrete unity of substance and subject. These are not fulfilled in his treatment of feminine consciousness. Women have not been fully reconciled with modern subjectivity. The thesis investigates opportunities to systematically resolve the inconsistencies inherent in Hegel's feminine consciousness, consistent with his logical imperatives and genuine intentions. The main contribution will be to locate sources of the problem that have been identified but not fully analysed in the literature of feminist philosophy. Beyond the standard references (The Pheno...

The Phenomenology of Religion: Freedom as Exposure to the Absolute

John Russon

A chapter from my book *Infinite Phenomenology: The Lessons of Hegel's Science of Experience* (Evanston: Northwestern University Press: 2015), pp 228-255. It is an analysis and interpretation of the "Religion" chapter in Hegel's *Phenomenology of Spirit*.

Understanding Hegel’s System: Flay, Houlgate, Stern, Westphal and the Realist Hegel Reading Refuted

Professor Ken S . Foldes

Understanding Hegel’s System: The Truth of “I = I” or “the Knowing of Itself”— Flay, Houlgate, Stern, Westphal and the Realist Hegel Reading Refuted

Hegel's Absolute Knowledge and its Many Interpretations

Jacob Blumenfeld

An in-depth analysis of the last chapter of Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit.

Hegel: 'Absolute Knowing,' the final chapter of the Phenomenology of Spirit

Sam Caldwell

A 2013 draft of this translation. Attempting to right some of Miller's and Pinkard's wrongs. Feel free to use and cite.

To appear in the collection of essays "Human Diversity in Context" edited by C. Ferrini (ca.2020)

Freedom through Otherness: Hegel's Lesson on Human Subjectivity and Intersubjectivity

Cinzia Ferrini

Hegel speaks of human self-knowledge in terms of "self-elevation" above the singularity of sensation to the universality of thought and as addressing human truth and knowledge. However, if we regard his famous injunction "know thyself" as meaning that a self-conscious I must become another for itself, only in order to be able to identify with itself, then our self-knowledge would rest upon a hypertrophy of the subject's sense of identity. For this reason Hegel has been charged with subordinating concrete difference and real alterity to abstract and idealistic self-identity. Is this Hegel's lesson on our subjective identity? To answer this question I examine how the phenomenological path brings to light the awareness of the common rationality of human beings in terms of the subject's capability to know oneself as oneself within the others passing through the necessity of negating the self-sense of one's own natural essential singularity. My aim is to show how Hegel's initially abstract subjective identity (the 'I') is torn out of its simplicity and self-relation (I am I), loses its independent punctual subsistence and, by overcoming the indifference and immediacy of what is other than itself, assumes an inter-subjective and objective dimension. I shall account for the 'I''s phenomenological process of transforming the accidentality, externality and necessity of its outwardness and inwardness into the socially shared spiritual representations, purposes and norms of any historical statal community of human agents. By focusing on the master-serf relationship and on the impact of what appears to be objectified in the serf''s work on the externalization of the master's own inwardness, I highlight Hegel's idea of freedom as intersubjective cognitive and practical actualization. In Hegel's absolute idealism, relational characteristics enter the definition of what is substantial in individuals qua embodied 'I''s, embedded in an interconnected totality.

Idealistic Studies

The Synthetic Unity of Apperception in Hegel's Logic of the Concept

2016 •

Gregory S Moss

Hegel repeatedly identifies rational self-consciousness as a real example of the concept, and its tripartite constituents: universality, particularity, and individuality. In what follows I will show that the concept as such, along with its tripartite constituents, are constitutive of rational self-consciousness. On the one hand, by showing how Hegel’s concept of the concept applies to rational self-consciousness, I aim to provide a concrete example of the concept of the concept in a real being whose being is not merely logical. On the other hand, I aim to show that Hegel’s application of the concept to rational self-consciousness is motivated by a problem within the philosophy of mind. For this reason, Hegel’s application of the concept of the concept to the mind is not arbitrary, but motivated by significant philosophical problems.

The Self and Its Body in Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit

John Russon

"This treatise makes an outstandingly important contribution to the interpretation of the Phenomenology." --H.S. Harris, The Owl of Minerva A major criticism of Hegel's philosophy is that it fails to comprehend the experience of the body. In this book, John Russon shows that there is in fact a philosophy of embodiment implicit in Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit. Russon argues that Hegel has not only taken account of the body, but has done so in a way that integrates both modern work on embodiment and the approach to the body found in ancient Greek philosophy. Although Russon approaches Hegel's Phenomenology from a contemporary standpoint, he places both this standpoint and Hegel's work within a classical tradition. Using the Aristotelian terms of 'nature' and 'habit,' Russon refers to the classical distinction between biological nature and a cultural 'second nature.' It is this second nature that constitutes, in Russon's reading of Hegel, the true embodiment of human intersubjectivity. The development of spirit, as mapped out by Hegel, is interpreted here as a process by which the self establishes for itself an embodiment in a set of social and political institutions in which it can recognize and satisfy its rational needs. Russon concludes by arguing that self-expression and self-interpretation are the ultimate needs of the human spirit, and that it is the degree to which these needs are satisfied that is the ultimate measure of the adequacy of the institutions that embody human life. This link with classicism - in itself a serious contribution to the history of philosophy -provides an excellent point of access into the Hegelian system. Russon's work, which will prove interesting reading for any Hegel scholar, provides a solid and reliable introduction to the study of Hegel.

Internationales Jahrbuch des Deutschen Idealismus

The Inferential Object: Hegel's Deduction and Reduction of Consciousness

2015 •

Dean Moyar