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The Phenomenology of Spirit

The Phenomenology of Spirit

Translated by Peter Fuss and John Dobbins

Published by: University of Notre Dame Press

EPUB
9780268103521
Published: September 2019

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Contents
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Praise

The Phenomenology of Spirit, first published in 1807, is G. W. F. Hegel’s remarkable philosophical text that examines the dynamics of human experience from its simplest beginnings in consciousness through its development into ever more complex and self-conscious forms. The work explores the inner discovery of reason and its progressive expansion into spirit, a world of intercommunicating and interacting minds reconceiving and re-creating themselves and their reality. The Phenomenology of Spirit is a notoriously challenging and arduous text that students and scholars have been studying ever since its publication.

In this long-awaited translation, Peter Fuss and John Dobbins provide a succinct, highly informative, and readily comprehensible introduction to several key concepts in Hegel's thinking. This edition includes an extensive conceptual index, which offers easy reference to specific discussions in the text and elucidates the more subtle nuances of Hegel's concepts and word usage. This modern American English translation employs natural idioms that accurately convey what Hegel means. Throughout the book, the translators adhered to the maxim: if you want to understand Hegel, read him in the English. This book is intended for intellectuals with a vested interest in modern philosophy and history, as well as students of all levels, seeking to access or further engage with this seminal text.

Acknowledgments

Translators’ Introduction

Preface

Introduction 1 Sense-Certainty: the This & Meaning

2 Perception: Things & Illusoriness

3 Force and Understanding, Appearances & the Supersensuous World

4 Self-Certainty’s Truth

4.A. Self-Consciousness Dependent & Independent: Mastery and Servitude

4.B. The Freedom of Self-Consciousness; Stoicism, Skepticism, & the Unhappy Consciousness

5 Reason: its Certainty and its Truth

5.A. Observational Reason

a. Observation of Nature

b. Observation of Self-Consciousness in its Purity & in Relation to External Actuality: Logical & Psychological Laws

c. Observation of the Relation of Self-Consciousness to Immediate Actuality: Physiognomy & Phrenology

5.B. The Self-Actualization of Rational Self-Consciousness

a. Pleasure and Necessity

b. The Law of the Heart & Arrogance Run Amok

c. Virtue & the Way of the World

5.C. Individuality that Deems Itself Genuinely Real In & For Itself

a. A Realm of Intelligent Animals and Deceit: the Abiding Concern

b. Legislative Reason

c. Reason Putting Law to the Test

6 Spirit

6.A. Pristine Spirit: the Ethical Way of Life

a. he Ethical World: Law Human & Divine, Man & Woman

b. Ethical Action: Knowledge Human & Divine, Guilt & Destiny

c. Legal Status

6.B. Spirit Estranged From Itself: Culture

1 The World of Self-Estranged Spirit

a. Culture & Its Sphere of Actuality

b. Faith & Pure Insight

2 Enlightenment

a. Enlightenment’s Struggle with Superstition

b. The Truth of Enlightenment

3 Total Freedom & Terror

6.C. Spirit Certain of Itself: Morality

a. The Moral World-View

b. Misrepresentation

c. Conscience; the Beautiful Soul: Evil and its Forgiveness

7 Religion

7.A. Natural Religion

a. The Divine Light

b. Plant & Animal

c. The Artificer

7.B. Art-Religion

a. The Abstract Artwork

b. The Living Artwork

c. The Spiritual Artwork

7.C. Manifest Religion

8 Absolute Knowledge

G. W. F. Hegel (1770–1831) is one of the most significant thinkers in the history of philosophy. He is the author of several influential works, including The Science of Logic.
Peter Fuss is professor emeritus of philosophy at University of Missouri–St. Louis. He is co-translator with John Dobbins of G. W. F. Hegel's Three Essays, 1793–1795 (University of Notre Dame Press, 1984).
John Dobbins is a former research assistant at University of Missouri–St. Louis.

"The translators succeed masterfully in this effort and the result makes a considerable contribution to understanding this formidable text. . . . As I read their introduction, I had the impression that Hegel was suddenly—wonder of wonders—speaking English! Perhaps for the first time, he was saying clearly what he wanted to say to native speakers of American English like myself." —Daniel O. Dahlstrom, John R. Silber Professor of Philosophy, Boston University

"An entrenched failing of Anglo-American philosophy is its neglect of Hegel. We have yet to reckon with how Hegel overcomes the dichotomies that confine modernity. Through decades of collaborative research, Peter Fuss and John Dobbins deliver with precision and grace a readable and teachable The Phenomenology of Spirit. Readers will awaken to a worldly Hegel who penetrates the drama and conceptual dynamism of human experience." —Patrick Murray and Jeanne Schuler, Creighton University