Hegel's Philosophy in Brief
Hegel's own pithy account of the nature of philosophy given in the "Preface" to his Elements of the Philosophy of Right captures a characteristic tension in his philosophical approach and, in particular, in his approach to the nature and limits of human cognition. "Philosophy", he says there, "is its own time raised to the level of thought".
On the one hand we can clearly see in the phrase "its own time" the suggestion of a historical or cultural conditionedness and variability which applies even to the highest form of human cognition, philosophy itself -- the contents of philosophical knowledge, we might suspect, will come from the historically changing contents of contemporary culture. On the other, there is the hint that with such contents being "raised" to some higher level, presumably higher than the more everyday levels of cognitive functioning -- those based in everyday perceptual experience, for example. This higher level takes the form of "thought" -- a type of cognition commonly taken as capable of having "eternal" contents (think of Plato and Frege, for example).
This antithetical combination within human cognition of the temporally-conditioned and the eternal, a combination which reflects a broader conception of the human being as what Hegel describes elsewhere as a "finite-infinite", has led to Hegel being regarded in different ways by different types of philosophical readers. For example, towards the end of our century, an
historically-minded " anti-realist" like Richard Rorty, distrustful of all claims or aspirations to the "God's-eye view", could praise Hegel as a philosopher who had introduced this historically reflective dimension into philosophy (and setting it on the characteristically "hermeneutic" path which has predominated in modern continental philosophy) but who had unfortunately still become bogged down in the remnants of the Platonistic idea of the search for ahistorical truths. Those adopting such an approach to Hegel tend to have in mind the (relatively) young author of the Phenomenology of Spirit and have tended to dismiss as "metaphysical" later and more systematic works like the Science of Logic. In
In section 15 of The Crisis, Husserl proposes an introspective enquiry of ourselves that is guided by the teleology of philosophy. As part of trying to understand ourselves, we must go back and look at what other philosophers in history have been saying in a bid to “understand the unity running through all the [philosophical] projects of history that oppose one another and work together in their changing forms”. In as much as this historical analysis is personal, we are just a part of the whole history of philosophy, and have a role to build up on what has been established before. In order to understand the teleological journey of philosophy, and how we are part of it, we cannot just look at it from the outside. We have to try and understand it from the inside - we already have the spiritual-historical connection - if we are to truly know who we are.
ABSTRACT: In this paper, I shall focus first on Heidegger's attempt to tackle the problem of 'metaphysics' and his wish to transcend it. Then, I shall try to evaluate his thoughts about transcending metaphysics in connection with his interpretation of Nietzsche's anthropology, which he considers to be the highest achievement in metaphysics.
In sections 190-193 of Georg Wilhelm Fredrich Hegel’s Phenomenology of Sprit, Hegel looks into the relationship between the lord and the bondsman. In this examination of the relationship, Hegel makes the move to find out what both the lord and bondsman offer to each other in terms of existence and or identity. The formulation that Hegel made in the selected sections is that the bondsman had more to gain in terms of intellectual growth than his lord who becomes intellectually dormant due to the bondsman acting in the likeness of his lord.
Philosophers believe that Hegel’s historicism has inherent conflicts that surprisingly fall in same dialectic argument that Hegel promotes, which somehow nullifies his philosophy. Originated and influenced by his Dialectic thought process of “thesis, antithesis, and synthesis”, Hegel believes that all societal and more importantly all human activities including culture, language, science, art, and even philosophy are defined by their past and the heart of these activities can be understood by studying their history. Hegel argues that the history of societal activity is a cumulative reaction to the events that has happened in the past. His famous “Philosophy is the history of philosophy" quote essentially summarizes his thoughts. Hegel believes history is a progressive and directional relation between human activities and society. He argues that in order to understand an individual, he must be studied in a society where in turn the same society can be understood by evaluating th...
...is an account of the birth of self-consciousness through intersubjectivity or the integration within culture. It is a dialectical interpretation that acts, for Hegel, as a form for perceiving the way in which the self comes to know itself through the other and through historical processes. The master/slave dialectic is an early account of intersubjectivity and also a lack of intersubjectivity because it is not based on equal recognition. Self-consciousness, for Hegel, is attained only through the recognition by another independent self. The human world is a world based on recognition, and the human being has within themselves the desire for recognition from other human beings. Hegel proposes that one cannot become a self-conscious individual without seeing oneself in another, and that each individual bases their existence on a world that is founded upon recognition.
Following in the path of Kant and Fichte, Hegel has become one of the most influential philosophers in history. His philosophy has influenced important people, such as Karl Marx, and influential schools of thought, such as the Frankfurt School. This influence rides heavily on the chapter, Master and Slave in his book Phenomenology of Spirit. This chapter examines the relationship between two self-consciousnesses, and the process of self-creating. The relationship between the two self-consciousnesses and the eventual path to ‘acknowledgment’ or recognition of the self is outlined in the first line of the chapter: “Self-consciousness exists in itself and for itself, in that, and by the fact that it exists for another self-consciousness; that
In beginning his lengthy phenomenology for identifying the pathway in which Geist will realize itself as Absolute Knowledge, Hegel begins at what many considered the most basic source of all epistemological claims: sensual apprehension or Sense-Certainty. Though the skeptical tradition took this realm as a jumping-off point for making defensible epistemological claims, Hegel sees in the sensual a type of knowledge so general and abstract as to be entirely vacuous. Focusing on the principle that anything known in the Scientific sense must be communicable, through language or its approximations, Hegel shows that whatever the sensual purports to know is inherently incommunicable and therefore cannot represent true knowledge.
Marx, Karl. "Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy in General." marxists.org. marxists.org, 19/10/2009. Web. 26 Mar 2010. .
Kung, Hans. The Incarnation of God: An Introduction to Hegel's Theological Thought As Prolegomena to a Future Christology. T&T Clark, 2001. hard cover.
Hegel's philosophy of History, on of the greatest in the philosophy cannon, is the great philosophers greatest body of work. The philosophy of History is based on such ideals as the idea that Reason rules history. George Hegel used Immanuel Kant's system of philosophy as a basis for his own, discarding a few ideas and adding some more. Particularly, he found fault with his idea of the underlying reality of everything, or "noumena," can never be known. They exist in a plane outside of our own reality and understanding, and are therefore impossible to perceive and study, much like Plato's "forms." Hegel countered this notion with the phrase, "What is rational is real, and what is real is rational." He believed that the ability to be understood is a prequalification for something to exist. Also, Hegel completely reversed Kant's idea of the nature of truth. While Kant carefully listed and categorized the components of truth, Hegel stated that truth was an organic and dynamic process that is impossible to break into neat components. In fact, he claims that truth constantly changes and encompasses many contradictions. Truth, he says, comes about as a product of Geist, a German word that can be translated as mind, ghost, or God.
Hegel, George Wilhelm Friedrich. Phenomenology of Spirit. Ed. A. V. Miller. Verlag Hamburg: Oxford University Press, 1952.
As presented in the Phenomenology of Spirit, the aim of Life is to free itself from confinement "in-itself" and to become "for-itself." Not only does Hegel place this unfolding of Life at the very beginning of the dialectical development of self-consciousness, but he characterizes self-consciousness itself as a form of Life and points to the advancement of self-consciousness in the Master/Slave dialectic as the development of Life becoming "for-itself." This paper seeks to delineate this often overlooked thread of dialectical insight as it unfolds in the Master/Slave dialectic. Hegel articulates a vision of the place of human self-consciousness in the process of Life as a whole and throws light on the role of death as an essential ingredient in the epic drama of life's struggle and Spirit's birth.
History is the increasing self-consciousness of the Spirit i.e. Reason; that is, a progressive increase of Reason within the world. This relationship between history and Reason is expressed by Hegel's agreement with Leibniz that this is the best of all possible worlds. In other words, everything is as it should be. In fact, Hegel makes strong assertions along just these lines, "that [Reason] reveals itself in the world, and that nothing else is revealed in the world but that Idea itself, its glory and majesty (12-13)." It is from this idea that Hegel derives the point that "Re...
Among those Hegel influenced were theologians and religious people because of his emphasis on the importance of God in his teachings. (Boston U) Hegel was supported by German scientists and theologians because he promoted the vitality of these two areas of studies. His opponents were those who did not believe in God or religious motives in philosophy like Kant with Agnostic Phenomenalism and Schelling with Objective Idealism that prompted Nietzsche and Marx to find their ideologies. Georg wrote many political works critiquing different European governments explaining how the morals and motives for doing certain things are corrupt and twisted. His more famous works came later, like the Jena Writings. Included in these writings was the Philosophy of Right. In this piece, Hegel talks about Natural Law and how the true meaning of Natural Law is hindered by the materialistic world. He claims that the physical world alters the perception of the actual truth. He advocated the traditional rationalist approach to the Natural Law. His underlying message is that the community must move beyond the false reality the state entraps them in to find what is real and what is good. (UTM) Hegel believed that if one were
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, Arnold V. Miller, and J. N. Findlay. Phenomenology of Spirit. Oxford [England: Clarendon, 1977. Print.