Phenomenology of Spirit (Galaxy Books)

This brilliant study of the stages in the mind's necessary progress from immediate sense-consciousness to the position of a scientific philosophy includes an introductory essay and a paragraph-by-paragraph analysis of the text to help the reader understand this most difficult and most influential of Hegel's works. This book contains an introductory essay and a paragraph-by-paragraph analysis of the text to help the reader understand this most influential of Hegel's works. Perhaps one of the most revolutionary works of philosophy ever presented, The Phenomenology of Spirit is Hegel's 1807 work that is in numerous ways extraordinary. It begins with a Preface, created after the rest of the manuscript was completed, that explains the core of his method and what sets it apart from any preceding philosophy. The Introduction, written before the rest of the work, summarizes and completes Kant's ideas on skepticism by rendering it moot and encouraging idealism and self-realization. The body of the work is divided into six sections of varying length, entitled "Consciousness," "Self-Consciousness," "Reason," "Spirit," "Religion," and "Absolute Knowledge." A myriad of topics are discussed, and explained in such a harmoniously complex way that the method has been termed Hegelian dialectic. Ultimately, the work as a whole is a remarkable study of the mind's growth from its direct awareness to scientific philosophy, proving to be a difficult yet highly influential and enduring work. Perhaps one of the most revolutionary works of philosophy ever written, "The Phenomenology of Spirit" is Hegel's 1807 work that is in numerous ways extraordinary. It begins with a Preface, written after the rest of the manuscript was completed, that explains the core of his method and what sets it apart from any preceding philosophy. The Introduction, written before the rest of the work, summarizes and completes Kant's ideas on skepticism by rendering it moot and encouraging idealism and self-realization. The body of the work is divided into six sections of varying length, entitled Consciousness, Self-Consciousness, Reason, Spirit, Religion, and Absolute Knowledge. A myriad of topics are discussed, and explained in such a harmoniously complex way that the method has been termed Hegelian dialectic. Ultimately, the work as a whole is a remarkable study of the mind's growth from its direct awareness to scientific philosophy, proving to be a difficult yet highly influential and enduring work. Hegel's Phenomenology was written, so the story goes, on the eve of Napoleon's destruction of the Holy Roman Empire and at the beginning of the German 'Wars of Liberation.' The book itself is no less dramatic and revolutionary. It is Hegel's grandest experiment, changing our vision of the world and the very nature of the philosophical enterprise. Hegel puts into harmony ethics and autonomy, ancient philosophy and tragedy, Byronic Romanticism, German poetry, the Enlightenment, the French Revolution, the concept of virtue, the history of religion (including an ambiguous defense and critique of modern Christianity), the beginnings of a new philosophy of science and Kant's moral philosophy. All are tied together with the dazzling if sometimes bewildering leaps in logic that have come to be known as 'Hegel's dialectic.' 90. The knowledge or knowing which is at the start or is immediately our object cannot be anything else but immediate knowledge itself, a knowledge of the immediate or of what simply is. At head of title: Hegel.Translations by Josiah Royce, J.B. Baillie, W. Wallace and others. "Short bibliography": [1] p. following p. xliii.