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Henri Mottu was a visiting French-Swiss professor of philosophy at Union Theological Seminary who taught a course on Hegel which I took owing to my interest in Kant and Marx and the word on campus that he knew Kojeve. The class was small, the readings consisting primarily of the Phenomenology and Kojeve's Introduction to the Reading of Hegel. It was very well taught, the discussions were exciting and I was inspired to go on an read a lot more by and about Hegel.
Hegel's contribution to Kantian idealism is his addition of an historical dimension. In other words, categories, frames of reference change. In Hegel's view this process occurs both objectively in nature and in history and subjectively in the process of self-education. That actually understates the enormity of his claim, for Hegel seems not only to be saying that there is change, but that this change is evolutionary and progressive.
Thus, in its broadest acceptation, the Phenomenology of the Spirit may be taken as a description of how the cosmos becomes conscious of itself, of the self-realization of what he terms "the Absolute Idea"--something like the old hellenistic notion of the divine Logos.
This self-actualization of the Logos has both an aetiological and a teleological dimension. On the one hand, he presumes to demonstrate how human history may be represented as an upward-moving, inclined spiral or vortex. Each stage is a sort of historical category and each, in its fullest achievement, takes up all that came before, raising it to a new, more universal level. This is the aetiological aspect of causality. On the other hand, the very ideas of Reason and of Universality or of God or Truth and the mystical apprehension of them lead and inspire the individual, even a whole people, towards their realization. This is the teleological dimension.
It is not difficult to understand how some can be very intrigued by this system which seems to promise so much--everything in fact--and to suggest that the student of it is in some sense a servant of the Absolute. Hegel certainly writes with such confidence and spirit that one often feels oneself to be sharing with him some sort of beatific vision whereby all becomes pregnant with meaning and signification.
I pursued this dream for years, never quite believing in it, but intrigued nevertheless. More on that later...
Hegel's contribution to Kantian idealism is his addition of an historical dimension. In other words, categories, frames of reference change. In Hegel's view this process occurs both objectively in nature and in history and subjectively in the process of self-education. That actually understates the enormity of his claim, for Hegel seems not only to be saying that there is change, but that this change is evolutionary and progressive.
Thus, in its broadest acceptation, the Phenomenology of the Spirit may be taken as a description of how the cosmos becomes conscious of itself, of the self-realization of what he terms "the Absolute Idea"--something like the old hellenistic notion of the divine Logos.
This self-actualization of the Logos has both an aetiological and a teleological dimension. On the one hand, he presumes to demonstrate how human history may be represented as an upward-moving, inclined spiral or vortex. Each stage is a sort of historical category and each, in its fullest achievement, takes up all that came before, raising it to a new, more universal level. This is the aetiological aspect of causality. On the other hand, the very ideas of Reason and of Universality or of God or Truth and the mystical apprehension of them lead and inspire the individual, even a whole people, towards their realization. This is the teleological dimension.
It is not difficult to understand how some can be very intrigued by this system which seems to promise so much--everything in fact--and to suggest that the student of it is in some sense a servant of the Absolute. Hegel certainly writes with such confidence and spirit that one often feels oneself to be sharing with him some sort of beatific vision whereby all becomes pregnant with meaning and signification.
I pursued this dream for years, never quite believing in it, but intrigued nevertheless. More on that later...
