Half Hour Hegel: The Complete Phenomenology of Spirit (Preface, sec 27-28)

In this twelfth video in the new series on G.W.F. Hegel's great early work, the Phenomenology of Spirit, I read and comment on the twenty-seventh and twenty-eight paragraph of the text, from the Preface. In these two paragraphs, Hegel explicitly discusses the structure and purpose of the Phenomenology -- providing a description of the coming-to-be of Science (as Hegel understands that concept)

He introduces the idea of shapes or stages of consciousness, which are Spirit at a given point of development, either as universal individual or as concrete individuals. What renders one shape (or a Spirit) more advanced than the other is not just that it is later or further along in the process, but that what was essential in the previous stage has been assimilated or incorporated into the structure of the later stage.

This allows us to understand the process of education as well as one in which what Spirit had worked out with much labor and even conflict at earlier points is now appropriated by consciousness "in outline", in the process of education.

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

[TomVincent-JFK]

Thanks so much for these lectures. I am a lay person when it comes to philosophy, but it has been a "hobby" of mine now for 30 years. I had always heard that Hegel is a hard read and I opened this book  last week and, geez! I went looking here on youtube for help  and found your installments. Youtube at it's finest! Thanks again.

[benjammin]

Perhaps we do need to rise up again professor Sadler!

[asgilb]

I'm glad you began with the whole preface because the first time I tried to read this, I was encouraged to skip the preface as it is "unnecessary", "too dense" and "contains Hegel's entire dialectal system". Hegel's right to say that there can be no substitute for working though the body of the book itself, but at least this preface establishes why it is worth working through in the first place and why the journey he guides us on must be so torturous.

[GregoryBSadler]

The next installment of the series -- here, Hegel explicitly tells us about the structure of the work, in terms of a progress through shapes of consciousness

[jeremyponcy]

I'm now making my way back through this for the third time. When I catch up to you I start again. When I started everything sounded like gibberish, certainly the book and even the tutorial. As I made my way through the second time the book made hardly anymore sense but the tutorial was starting to pierce my understanding. As I make my way through the third time even the reading is becoming more and more clear and I'm beginning to enjoy the WORK of the phenomenology. It seems to me, however, that even more than the work the hardest part of the phenomonology is sustaining the faith necessary to do the work and the confidence that there is something there even if you can't see it yet. It's easy to become nihilistic both in the phenomonology proper as well as in the readings. It's relieving too finally see a little light.

[jankuiper]

The end of paragraph 27 reminds me of Dante's Divine Comedy. Dante wants to go straight up the mountain towards God, but gets blocked predatory animals (his sins). Then he has to work his way through inferno, hell and heaven, going through all circles to get to God. After going through he can see God and he gains (absolute) understanding.

If one of the people who starts at the Absolute would have been the hero of the Divine Comedy it would just be a bloke who claims to be on top of that mountain and to understand God, without making the actual journey; which would make it a boring book.

[Reviving_Virtue]

Thought I would share this tidbit: 2-years ago I needed to buy a calculator for a graduate level stats exam, since it was a 'closed book' exam, and my 5 year old son became enamoured with it. The calculator never left his side, and he used it to calculate all sorts of things. 2-years later he still uses it all the time and now comes home from 2nd grade saying things like 'School was fun, but Daddy, we didn't do any math today, and I really wanted to do math.'

So even in the era of ubiquitous smart screens and all sorts of crazy video games, and endless on demand content made specifically for every conceivable type of child, my kid sense of wonder at the power of a 'dumb' calculator is a reminder sometimes the simplest tools can ignite the most profound curiosity and passion.

[dantheman]

I really enjoyed this part. One of the things that actually gets me engaged in subjects that I didn't previously enjoy to the same extent is to see its historical development. Studying the history and philosophy of science greatly helped me see the beauty of the development of natural science. All of these people in the past that pushed the limits of knowledge even further beyond, did so painstakingly in ways that seem trivial to us. Sometimes we went off in the weeds and got many things wrong. Then, to see contemporary science as part of that progression and not separate from its history greatly moves me.

[LeoSlizzardEngine]

Thanks for this. I got through these sections and I was very excited to see the title mentioned!

I had a realisation that reflectivity, into itself, is part of Hegel’s system of thought to some degree (end of section 28). Did this inform Derrida and others who may have focused on self-reflectivity or self-reflexivity?

[eupraxis]

The progressive embodiment of historical development. The Notion cometh. Well done and entertaining lecture.

[brandonwadlington]

I'm absolutely loving this series! I had a question though. Did Hegel coin the term phenomenology? If not, then how was it used prior to this work? I just finished a Modern Philosophy course, and we went from Descartes to Kant, but phenomenology was never discussed.

[abcrane]

yes, true...Malinowski brought, in my humble, anthropology (science) to a Hegelian level by living among his "subjects." the armchair intellectuals (only reading primary sources of explorers) did not "know" their subjects as Malinowski came to understand. his diaries reflected not only this, but his deep self-consciousness of his own self, his own culture (programming?), in contrast to that of the tribal people. he then, in a sense, became just as much a subject (of his own study) as the tribal folks.

[ekekonoise]

Your videos are the most didactic commentary on Hegel I've seen or read, bar none, I'm enjoying them more than Heidegger's and that's a lot. You said maybe the xx century was a decline in the development of the Geist. Do you go deeper into this opinion anywhere? Would love to hear you more on the subject, I'm partial to the same idea. Do you think Hegel is right when he says the Geist general tendency is towards development?

[evanmcginn]

What books could introduce me to Hegel?

[lyndonbailey]

Would Hegel have been aware of the difficulties of making a social science a science like the hard sciences?

[lyndonbailey]

If I understand you right, vulgar Marxism and similar dogmas could be seen as making the error of seeing the master slave as being totally current and relevant.