I had to read this out loud while walking in circles. But the universals he's talking about, once I noted them and found a way to simplify them for my mind, are about as useful as anything. There's an antsy calm contained within. Definitely changed my life.

It is often said that Hegel is the shadow from which philosophy will never emerge from behind, though this is perhaps to paint Hegel too ominously, if only giving weight to the enormity of influence he has cast. Given his theory of self-consciousness, I would much prefer to describe Hegel as the philosopher who shed an indelible light.

According to Hegel, theories of knowledge that are supported via the illustration of metaphors that use instruments or mediums are misleading insofar as instruments are used for grasping knowledge and mediums allow us to receive empirical data passively. Both of these metaphors, in which Kant's epistemological constitution of the understanding and the thing in itself are included, distort reality. For in this correspondence theory of truth, the world in itself is taken on one hand and the world of ideas, concepts, mind, thoughts, words, etc., are taken on the other. It is through correspondence of our representations to the world as it really exists that we acquire knowledge. Hegel does away with this dualism, and challenges skepticism at even greater lengths than Kant did with Hume; where Kant presented the categories, Hegel claims that the skeptic knower is in constant worry about whether their perceptions correspond to reality. Consciousness is the beginning of Hegel's epistemology, like Descartes and Kant before him, but his claim that consciousness goes all the way down shows us that the moment that we arrive on the scene, consciousness and reality are so dialectically enmeshed that we can never have access to anything unmediated by concepts. Objects can only be experienced through consciousness, so there is no point where consciousness ends and reality begins; our conceptions of the world are the things in themselves. Our knowledge of the world is therefore self-knowledge.

It follows that our criteria for truth is to what degree conceptions satisfy our longing for self-recognition. When a child plays in nature or with blocks, for example, the child is in no way trying to get in touch with objects as they really exist in themselves, but instead projects the self onto the objects of the world, and for that reason returns to the objects again and again as they learn about themselves as they shape the world in their image.

Because concepts are not universal, as we change so the world changes, meaning categories are historical and changeable. It is through desire and recognition that we may come into our own personhood. It is for this reason that concepts are always moving towards a greater understanding in absolute idealism.

Therein the dialectic of lord and bondsman is underway as the subject toils in the world out of desire and want for recognition while encountering the Other, for which they see themselves in without having the full agency of self-knowledge but only a partial understanding of the self as will and power and the Other as an agent of similar desires for which the world bends, engaging the two in a life and death struggle against each other out of competition.

Eventually, one party submits to the will of the other and assumes the role of the slave. The master no longer toils at the expenditure of the will, and therefore achieves leisure. However, because of this, the master can derive no sense of value from the toiling of the slave and so only sees the slave as means rather than an end in themselves (see Kantian ethics), undifferentiated in nature without anything to add to petty tasks. The slave's choice to bend to the will of the master leaves them chained at the will, used as a means, and yet the slave still toils and creates the world in his own image and for his own end.

The slave becomes less alienated and grows self-conscious as the master slips into lassitude, eventually enslaving the master, at which point the process repeats. These revolutions are mediated by Others in the dialectic; therefore, the discovery of the self is in Others, necessitating not only the recognition of the other as a self unto its own, but the resulting reconciliation of the two. Both possess half freedoms, freedoms that contrast from Rousseau's claim that "man is born free and yet everywhere he is in chains," Hegel instead opting that man is born alienated and that it is through our interaction with Others that we become free, freedom meaning self-conscious and "active" to borrow a phrase from Spinoza.

The capacity for self-recognition lying in the consequent self of the other along with the required reconciliation between them presents us with a philosophy contingent on compassion, which is certainly the most beautiful part of Hegel’s exposition. It is only through these avenues by which we become free, and so the anxiety of redemption calls upon the ethical realm (the mere mention of the anxiety of Being should trigger one’s awareness of the influence Hegel would have upon existentialism). Here, we are treated to Hegel’s system of ethics which are to be more fully extrapolated in his Philosophy of Right. For the time, it is best to see Hegel as expanding upon Kant’s system, though with a generous helping of Aristotle. His section dedicated to notions about the good life are brief in the grander scope of the book, and they are perhaps slightly less obscure than the most difficult to discern passages of, say, his section on Reason (let there be no misunderstanding that even the most lucid passages are still more difficult than Kant). It could be said that the elimination of those parts of Kant’s moral theory that concern themselves with the establishment of certain strictures that ultimately are the formulation of Kant himself despite his claims of their status as anything but his personal preferences, in some way saves Kant’s moral theory from itself, though it is unclear whether Hegel is simply, by pulling from Aristotle, showing his own biases. Nonetheless, his ideas concerning the ultimate spirit of man leads him to such conclusions as the family as the natural ethical engagement and communities as the building blocks of the fully realizing subject under the state. It is easy to see how Hegel would both influence leftists like Marx or any number of anarchists who were critical of the logical conclusion of his communitarian arguments, while also profoundly influencing traditionalist conservatives like Bradley and Scruton who rely on the ideas of the community while also defending the concept of the sovereign nation and the religious community that realizes Spirit in both the endeavors of philosophy and religion, particularly the recognition found in the wholly man and wholly God (other) Christ, who we are fully in through His sacrifice.

Perhaps the most ambitious work of philosophy and the last of the great systematizers, Hegel’s Phenomenology is, depending on who you ask, either a work worth not only wading through with great difficulty but extolling the virtues of (compassion not least among them), or a work from which we will never recover.



A Few Secondary Sources You Might Want To Seek Out (which are quite necessary; I personally could not have made it without them):

Cognition: An Introduction to Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit by Tom Rockmore

A Short History of Modern Philosophy and Modern Philosophy: An Introduction and Survey, both by Roger Scruton

The Cambridge Companion to Hegel

What is like to live in a world of phenomena and sensations? To understand how the world appears to our conscience... The path seems quite risky and bare complicated... the analysis of this book explores psychology and philosophy alike... it's a tour of force from research into experience of a phenomena...

If you were to ask me for my highest-rated Fave work of modern thinking, I think I'd have to say it's this. Working in conceptual language throughout (hint: as you read this, try to treat each concept as a tangible Building Block in the construction of a Dream Home!), Hegel shows us that all of Nature is built on basic building units - call them our intellectual DNA.

But since it's a DREAM Home, like any dream this house will have a Dark Side. The dream of life is completely and annoyingly fluid - and there can be no fixed guideposts. And you're going to run into dark snags in any dream!

But there CAN be happy endings. And Hegel ALWAYS takes one for granted, but, as the Hollies might have crooned,

(His) road is long,
With many a winding turn...

First, he takes Leibnitz (Voltaire's Pangloss) at his word: everything IS for the best in this best of all possible worlds. There will always be a New Dawn - though sometimes the darkest hour before that morning light seems to stretch out forever.

All will be well in the end.

Okay, buddy, you say - PROVE it!

And he says he does, in this book.

Now, hear me out on this: I think he's successful. His three abstract Building Blocks (strands of DNA) are simply threefold, to whit:

Thesis,
Antithesis, and
Synthesis.

All life works in those units he says, for life is a discussion (or even argument) with ourselves, our hearts, or a friend (or enemy). On that foundation is constructed the world!

Now, all my life I've struggled to find my original Thesis - the most basic thing I can say about life. In my old age, I may have found it. It's the same as Buddha's prime fact: life is pain, or, if you will - life is tough and then you die.

Can't get much more basic than that!

Now, to give you a bit of a spoiler on how exactly this same thought made Hegel tick, I've gotta tell you he was a lifelong practising Christian. So, as for me, his building blocks turn out to be:

Thesis - we are all born into the pain of sin.
Antithesis - God has forgiven us by taking our sin on Himself.
Synthesis - salvation is Real.
***

So, as T.S. Eliot wrote in Rhapsody on a Windy Evening,

Memory!
You have the key...

For if you will remember these salient facts about these conclusions his mind always works towards, Hegel's dense, problematic, and unnervingly aporetic arguments will NEVER Daunt you -

Or get you down for too long!

All well and good, perhaps, but life is tough and then you die...

But here Hegel adds his tacit caveat: Faith can always get you through, in the end:

Hegel was convinced of that throughout his hard life.

For the Phenomenology is - teleologically speaking - above all, an airtight case for Happy Endings.

So with most books, even within philosophy, it's possible to underline various passages, take notes in the margins, and come up with a condensed version that crystallizes various insights into compact form, a sort of personal recapitulation in order to better understand the work.

The good news and the bad news is that Hegel already did this for you! You can literally just go ahead and underline (or not) every sentence, because he's fit about 4000 pages of content into a 500-page book. One of my undergrad professors wrote his dissertation on a few sentences in the preface to the Phenomenology, and he never ran out of material. Entirely apart from its density, this book is simply a work of art; one of the very few indisputable works of genius in Western philosophy.

My friend Ching-In who made me join Goodreads said that I should honestly list my books, which is why this one is on my shelf. I normally don't talk about it in public for fear that people will think I'm a snot. But I really loved this book. I've never identified so much with a writer before, and also, even though this book is essentially impossible to read, my friend Georg really is a super genius.

The thing that fascinated me most about this book is how much Hegel wanted to believe that everything happened for a reason. He wanted so desperately to believe that, that he invented this immense, intricate and slightly loopy system of thought with it's own freaking language.

I mean, even if you hate the book, you have to admire that kind of commitment.

I spent a lot of time with this book. When I say a lot. I mean an inordinate amount of time. I just felt like when I really dove into each paragraph and broke it apart and went bit by bit that I was going to find some greater truth hidden underneath it all. Unfortunately for me this was not so. Some paragraphs when broken down extensively I admit I still did not get. Actually in other paragraphs I would figure out what his "point" was and be like ok well duh thank you for not contributing anything new to the topic Hegel you bastard. Then again maybe it was new ideas for his time? Then again maybe I completely missed the points I thought he was trying to make? I have no idea, on the one hand I felt super relieved when it was over, but on the other hand I felt like going back to see what I had "missed". Not even knowing if I did miss anything that I may have actually cared about! I mean the subject of consciousness when approached from any angle should have been super fascinating! I don't know what to think of it all. So frustrating.

She finished it. Witnesses are silently gathering around. The book is slowly moving into the read-shelf.

I recommend everyone to use this to wipe you ass if you run out of toilet paper

رغم اني انزعجت بعد نهايتي من الكتاب
ومعرفتي انها نسخة مبسطة ومختصرة
الا اني استفدت منه ومررت به كحالات تذبذب بين الفهم والضحك من عدم الفهم احيانا
ظاهريات الروح هي علم تجربة الوعي

وطريق العلم هو علم تجربة الوعي

سأبلور رأيي بعد قراءتي للنسخة كاملة ان شاء الله

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...

يقول شيللر

ان الطبيعة توحد في كل مكان والفهم يفصل ويمايز في كل مكان اما العقل فهو يوحد من جديد ولهذا يكون الانسان قبل ان يتفلسف اقرب الى الحقيقة من الفيلسوف الذي لم يفرغ من بحثه بعد

I won't be adding my meager words to the 20,000+ volumes already written on Hegel. In fact, if you're reading this now, stop squandering your life and read the Phenomenology instead. Any summary, any review, any star-based rating system will fail incredibly to even scratch the surface. Guess who said "we are all still contemporaries of the Young Hegelians"?

A MASTERPIECE! I didn't understand a word of it.