Routledge Philosophy GuideBook to Hegel and the Phenomenology of Spirit

امر آشنا، به‌طور کلی، دقیقاً از آن‌جا که آشناست، شناخته‌شده نیست. معمول‌ترین شیوه‌ای که خودمان و دیگران را فریب می‌دهیم، آشنا فرض کردن چیزی و به همان اندازه تن دادن به آن است. چنین دانشی، با تمام دلایل موافق و مخالفش، هیچ‌گاه گامی به پیش نمی‌نهد و خود نمی‌داند که چرا؟

There are a few interesting chapters in this book: Master/Slave Dialectic, Stoics, Unhappy Consciousness, and Religion. The conclusion too, when it explains the influence Hegel had on Marx, existentialism and psychoanalysis.

This is the best text to help understand the PoS I've found. I recommend reading the PoS first, section by section, then read this guidebook. Then go back to the specific paragraphs this guidebook mentions and reread them in the text.

I first tried reading Hegel's Phenomenology straight up; this was futile. I then looked for a summary of Hegel's main arguments, to prepare for the original, and found Stern's text. While I cannot evaluate how well Stern captures Hegel, since I haven't yet read the original, I can comment on some of its features. Stern's writing is well-structured and readable, and he touches on most of the topics in Hegel's work; but he leaves unclear what Hegel's actual ideas are.

The first chapter provides a good layout of Hegel's motivation and the structure of the Phenomenology. Hegel thinks that the major problem modernity faces is an alienation from the world. In a post-Enlightenment context, we can no longer regard our values as being absolute, or having objective grounding; rather, our values seem to be based on mere subjective attitudes. We are alienated from a sense of our values as being absolute, as if they were a part of nature itself, and are stranded in our modern world of contingent values. For Hegel, we moderns seek to feel "at home in the world" again. Hegel thinks the solution is to discover a worldview (or conceptual framework regarding the nature of reality, subjectivity, and knowledge) that permits the world to show up as rational.

The Phenomenology is structured by presenting one worldview after another; each corresponds with a phase in human history, in which this worldview was more dominant (e.g. "observing reason" is a worldview that corresponded with the Enlightenment). Hegel shows that each worldview is arrived at from the need to reconcile certain problems, which all stem from the opposition between particulars and universals. He shows that while each worldview can solve certain problems, their principles lead to new paradoxes. The need to resolve those leads to the next worldview. Worldviews progress toward the final one, according to which we realize that reality in itself is rationally structured, and ultimate knowledge is thus conceptual/rational, and possible; and we realize the idea of noumena, or a world-in-itself that is fundamentally knowable, is an illusion.

I was very eager to read more after this introductory chapter. But I was disappointed. Stern always presents summaries of different interpretations of Hegel's arguments, and then his evaluation of which competitor is most plausible. But sometimes he does this in a way in which the context of a particular argument, and its conclusion, are not clear. Also the progression between certain chapters is left unclear, and later chapters seem to be totally unrelated. It seems that Stern's primary concern is to summarize the main positions in the literature on Hegel interpretations, rather than to clarify the Phenomenology to the reader.

Stern concludes the book with asking which parts of the Phenomenology still have relevance for us today; his only response is that it certainly does have relevance, without explaining which parts do and why. This was very unsatisfying. In the end, I am left uncertain about Hegel's main points and conclusions. What does it really mean for reality-in-itself to be rational? What is the nature of his idealism? What is the fundamental tension between particularity and universality, and what is Hegel's solution to this? If anyone can help me on this major questions that drive Hegel's work, or provide suggestions on other secondary literature that is clearer, please let me know!

extremely basic, but can't deny that it was helpful. the section on the final section of the PoS was far too abridged, and there should have been a section treating the Preface.

پدیدارشناسی روح هگل بی‌تردید هم از حیث سبک و هم از حیث محتوای فلسفی یکی از بزرگ‌ترین آثار فلسفی تاریخ است. هرچند در دستنوشته‌های فلسفی دوران ینای هگل نخستین اشاره‌ها به روش دیالکتیکی به چشم می‌خورد، هگل در پدیدارشناسی برای نخستین بار از نسخه‌ای کمال‌یافته و پخته از چگونگی به کارگیری روش دیالکتیکی‌اش رونمایی می‌کند. این کتاب داستان سفر روح از بدوی‌ترین و نازل‌ترین منزلگاهش، یعنی یقین حسی، تا والاترین مرتبه آگاهی، یعنی دانش مطلق، را روایت می‌کند. هر مرحله روح پس از سرخوشی کاذب اولیه، به‌ناگاه تعارضات درونی خود را درمی‌یابد و به نوعی نبرد با این تعارضات، که در صدد نفی موقعیت آرام و رضایتمندانه او هستند، برمی‌آید و پس از تقلای بسیار، به دلیل ناتوانی‌اش در فائق آمدن بر این تعارضات، عرصه را واگذار می‌کند و به درون نوعی ناامیدی فرومی‌غلتد. در نتیجه، روح بدون آن‌که تعارضات را به کناری بزند و همچنین بدون آن‌که موضع قبلی‌اش را به‌کلی دور بیندازد، می‌کوشد تا موضعی نوین بر ویرانه‌های موضع قبلی بنا کند و همان حرکت مشهور رفع یا آوفهبونگ هگلی را محقق می‌سازد که کارکردی دوگانه دارد و می‌توان آن را «نفی در عین حفظ» نامید.

This is a must-have book to understand Hegel's work. It makes it much easier to understand The Phenomenology of Spirit, if a person reads this book first!

صعب، ويحتاج الى اعادة قراءة، والى قراءات كثيرة عن هيجل، النهر الذي لا ينضب.