Half Hour Hegel: The Complete Phenomenology of Spirit (Preface, sec 31-32)

In this fourteenth video in the new series on G.W.F. Hegel's great early work, the Phenomenology of Spirit, I read and comment on the thirty-first and thirty-second paragraphs of the text, from the Preface. In these two paragraphs, Hegel discusses why Philosophy cannot confine itself to the realm of the familiar, the taken-for-granted, which provides only a superficial understanding of matters.

He contrasts this to the work of analysis, which is carried out by the faculty of the Understanding -- and in these passages, Hegel notes how the understanding can, and must grapple with the power of the negative. Tarrying with the negative in what Spirit must do -- and this enables there to be productive, radically new stages in the development of the dialectic, as what was only a moment of a whole becomes an independent existence over and against the whole.

In this video series, I will be working through the entire Phenomenology, paragraph by paragraph -- for each one, first reading the paragraph, and then commenting on what Hegel is doing, referencing, discussing, etc. in that paragraph.

The introductory music for the video is: Solo Violin - BWV 1004 - Partita for Violin No. 2 - Recorded in Brooklyn June 26, 2011 specifically to be dedicated to the Public Domain

#Hegel #Phenomenology #Philosophy #Idealism #German #Dialectic #Spirit #Absolute #Knowledge #History

[GregoryBSadler]

Get your dose of the dialectic!

(some very fun passages here)

[j_drichmond]

This has been eminently useful. As someone who is largely “self-taught” in philosophy, having the impetus to read this in order to better comprehend Zizek’s references to the Hegelian negative as well as this being my fourth re-read in the last three years, the “forms” of my understanding of this text were rather nearsighted and frustrated—but your cogency has allowed me to better see the leaves where there were once only green blobs.

[AppleCinnamon]

Fabulous lectures sir. I 🤍💙❤ your insightful presentations. Beautiful and clear articulation.

[jeremyponcy]

Section 32 is a very deep passage with powerful personal implications when applied to individual Self Actualization.

[FlaviaMartins]

Thank you for the classes, professor!

[RoyalAnarchist]

Hegel is piquing my interest to learn the relationship between Structured Knowledge and Spirit. The thought that Science and Spirit can have such a close relationship gives me hope that we can have a society that is both technologically advanced and spiritually healthy

[bennymalat]

Hi Professor, thank you for your lectures and your time! I may be mistaken, but I believe that the point you made at the end of the lecture relates strongly to the traditional definition of mindfulness, which, as I understand it, would be a constant awareness of what is going on within ourselves, if not also occasional analysis

[kylebyron]

Thank you for these videos. The short summaries out there of works like The Phenomenology can't do the text justice like a close study can. I can sympathize with the familiarity point. After going to a heavily analytic department for my undergrad I moved on and read Heidegger for the first time. When I got to his critique of Descartes' subject/object distinction the kinds of questions my entire education centered around became defamiliarized. 

[DavidGreybeard]

One thing I've been trying to sort out is the importance of experience and memory into what culminates to knowledge. For Hegel it seems important to intervene with memory--as if it is a source of bad habit. Knowledge is in play when we are experiencing phenomena and have a receptive mind to see new properties that may or may not involve what we have memorized? But I guess in a way that can be fit into a schema that doesn't abandon everything that preceded it.

Maybe it is helpful to contrast him with Aristotle who I recall had a theory of knowledge that was more generous to memory and stated only beings with memory could go through with knowledge. Experience ranking somewhat below memory and evident in beings that honestly do not have access to any kind of knowledge.

Right now I set up a distinction that to Hegel our Spirit is about being an excellent observer while with Aristotle his philosophy was more humanistically rooted in being an excellent human being. This assessment is, of course, developed from where we are now in the text. But for me this is probably the starting point of where I begin to assess hegel. I feel I am not considering well what hegel calls reflection, mediation, and other related concepts.

[lyndonbailey]

Interesting about defamiliarisation.Noam Chomsky has a spiel about how sciences tended to lurch forward when something considered mundane and obvious was made salient problematised and posed as a question that recognised it's actual mystery.

[thereisonlythecave]

Thank you for these commentaries. In your comments for section 32 you say that the understanding and death are somehow related, could you say something more about that? How are they related? Also, is "negativity" to be understood as "opposition?"
Thank you!

[michelc]

32 is the first par. i can not wrap my head around :( i tried for a couple hours. will try again tomorrow

[DrewShotwell]

Hello Professor. Thanks for these lectures, I’m taking a crack at the Phenomenology now and they have been indispensable so far.

Do you think that there is a comparison with section 31 (the realm of the familiar) and Wittgenstein’s language games? In that both are closed systems that in a sense only skate the surface?

[thomashummel]

At least at this point it seems like PoS is a synthesis of Spinoza and Aristotle. Is there anything to this?

[lyndonbailey]

Anchors...that's funny..Social Psychology would say anchoring is a ubiquitous bias and method of comprehending new things.Its one of the classic cognitive biases/heuristics.