Verð að viðurkenna að ég vanmat hve fáránlega torskilin Hegel er því ég átti í stökustu vandræðum með að fylgja textanum. Það kom heldur ekkert svakalega mikið fram þar sem þetta er formáli en ég veit þó að ég þori ekki í megin verkið í bráð(er bara bíða eftir þýðingunni þinni vignir).

Prior to Hegel, the philosophic world had both the subject/object divide under the purview of mental legislation and its attendant moral freedom, via Kant, and an Absolute Substance permeating all, as per Spinoza. Hegel's great task was to effect a copacetic methodology for interweaving these two threads together, such that we have Substance as Subject, and Subject unified with Substance—a system wherein both sides of this perduring existential divide would be endowed with an autonomy that yet did not denegate the one to the other, thanks to the becoming-in-synthesis of the Hegelian Dialectic and its mirroring of subjective negativity to effect evolved syllogisms of antithetic corollaries—made sufficiently rigorous that it could assume a fundamental Spiritual role in the extension of an increasingly powerful, relevant, and revelatory Science. At its heart, what one finds beating at the lowest, but steadiest, register is the theme of being-for-itself—the individuality previously considered as subjective processor of temporal, causal extension—subsumed within Spirit's universal, organic whole, and yet the key instigator in the latter's enveloping arc: a communal tether for morally-free souls borne along with the current, a trending towards microcosmic stochasticity/volition and macrocosmic orderliness/determinism. Yovel's translation somewhat improves upon that of Miller's, while offering much more extensive commentary—indeed, at times to the point of excess, particularly in its momentum-laming, page-inflated pervasiveness—along the procession through Hegel's potent but obfuscatory and densely-wrought thought.

Fantastic translation and remarkably helpful annotations, commentary, and introduction.

It is nice that readers have a second, decent text to compare to Miller. Miller is sometimes better, Yovel is sometimes better. Yovel is usually clearer, Miller usually more lyrical.

The commentary is alright, sometimes a little biased, often a little pointless, sometimes helpful. Yovel's introduction is a bit long winded and not helpful enough to justify the time invested in my opinion. If you want historical context, Beiser's introduction to the Cambridge Companion on Hegel is concise. If you want to know what is important to Hegel, just read the author himself.

There isn't anything quite like this book (except Kaufmann's Hegel: Texts and Commentary) and it may be a good place to start with Hegel for some readers. Just be forewarned, like most contemporary scholars, Yovel thinks Hegel's writing needs to be contextualized and updated. Both assumptions fail to treat the book as a whole statement that can stand on its own.

Will probably need to revisit this, but it was the most approachable work of Hegel's in the library so I figured "why not?" Most of the book came in the form of axioms, like Spinoza's Ethics or DeBord's Society of the Spectacle, and the book was made less intimidating as a result of this format. It is a thoroughly fascinating book. I trudged through some swathes with much difficulty but also flew through others pages effortlessly. If you don't read for total comprehension the first time around you will likely enjoy it.

Extremely helpful.

Seeming philosophy creating consciousness scientifically.
Altho’ more like a stream-of-consciousness narrative ergo literary—
And hence its perceived verbiage philosophy
(tho’ any form of consciousness can flow for O philosophy).

By equaling consciousness times the awareness sensed, objects subsumes and are Being  absorbed by Understanding  which Hegel calls - absolute power (?) processing, such that Hegel attains it via processions, stages com levels incrementally up unto the ultimate (?) he nominates as - the Spirit (?),
which still, sans a scientific (mathematic) rigor so unsubstantially defined, that a a fortiori follows his verbiage prose (a curious finite recursions in reflections!) imbues his writings. .

Perhaps a 'process philosophy', still in progress, be its pinnacle. . thesis.

( Being, Becoming, Knowledge is 'its' 'truth', but all of Hegel be mere Becoming, not yet in its greatest level ).

Perchance due a discord distinguishing unconsciousness contra consciousness then prevailing over 18-19 century continental philosophy.
Perchance too, that, for as before I had liken his prose unto like a stream of consciousness narrative, his being unique therefor (o'er 19 cent. continental philosophers) plays relevant solely to his own solipcist(ical) self..

Perhaps a process philosophy which wills a progress, striving for perfection, be its pinnacle... synthesis.

( Being, Becoming, Knowledge is 'its' 'truth', but all of Hegels' be mere Becoming, its greatest level ).

Evolutionary Hegel fails qua bio-co-neuro scientific way.
But may its greatest uplifting of philosophy be, howe'er parochial it be, due its lack of collective unconsciousness com Eastern reflections, the history learn'd of our consciousness (nous) evolutionarily.

Excellent commentary

An absolutely fascinating work with a very helpful running commentary by Yovel. I have caught the Hegel bug. I will hence be reading much more Hegel from this day forward. He is a figure too important to be skipped over, as well as too interesting to neglect. Since Hegel was critical of thinkers who wanted to skip to the end and condense philosophical truth into a quick and easy summary, I won't begin to dive into the spacious system of Hegel's dialectic in a short review. You will have to read the book if you want to dive in.

I will just add that Yovel's Introduction is a very clear and helpful explication of Hegel's thought. It is so lucid that one must wonder whether one is actually accurately understanding Hegel himself!

An Outstanding Introduction To Hegel

Hegel (1770 -- 1831) is probably the most difficult and the most controversial of the great philosophers. Much of modern analytic philosophy, beginning with Russell and Moore, had its origin in an uncompromising rejection of Hegel (in the persons of his British idealist followers) and his obscurantism. Continental philosophers, such as Heidegger, are heavily indebted to Hegel even while philosophizing against him. I have had difficulty in prior attempts to read Hegel. His massive "Phenomenology of Spirit" proved nearly impenetrable when I read it several years ago. The short introductory secondary sources on Hegel that I read proved unsatisfactory.

Thus, I was pleased to find and read this short book by Yirmiyahu Yovel, "Hegel's Preface to the Phenomenology of Spirit." Yovel is a Professor of Philosophy at the New School University and Chairman of the Jerusalem Spinoza Institute. I had earlier read Yovel's two-volume study of Spinoza, "Spinoza and Other Heretics" which made me eager to learn about Hegel from him. Yovel offers an erudite, careful and highly-philosophically informed account of this difficult philosopher.

Even with a philosopher as difficult as Hegel, the best approach begins with the philosopher's own writings rather than a paraphrase. Yovel offers a translation of the Preface to Hegel's "Phenomenology." Written in 1807, the "Phenomenology" remains Hegel's greatest work. A close reading of the Preface, which Hegel wrote after completing his text, may be the best way to begin to understand what he is about. Yovel's translation is as accessible and accurate as a translation of such a work may be. But the major appeal of his version of the Preface is the running commentary which explains and elucidates Hegel's words on an almost line-by-line basis, trying to clarify Hegel's thought and its many differing interpretations. After reading through the Preface and Yovel's commentary, I tried to read the Preface alone, without reference to the notes. This remains a daunting task. The better approach remains to read the Preface closely several times, together with Yovel's commentary.

The text and commentary forms about one-half of the book. Yovel begins with an introductory 60-page essay which, he observes, "is not intended to replace the commentary but to complement it." Much of the introduction is spent explaining Hegel's difficult metaphysical concepts which are anathema to most contemporary philosophers. Even if much of Hegel's metaphysical baggage is rejected, as it should be, Yovel argues persuasively that it must be understood in order to know Hegel and to find whatever may be valuable in his thought. Yovel tries to explain two of the most famous and puzzling statements in Hegel: that "the true is the whole" and that "the true [the absolute] is subject." He offers parallels and divergences between Hegel's thought and that of Kant and Spinoza. Yovel differentiates Hegel's idealism from that of his former friends and post-Kantian thinkers, Fichte, Schelling and Holderlin, in elucidating Hegel's rejection of "mysticism" and commitment to what he viewed as "reason". The introduction concludes with a consideration of what Yovel finds valuable in Hegel, including his commitment to a this-worldly philosophy of immanence which tries to avoid both positivism and spiritualism, a recognition that human reason is substantive rather than a formal machine-like calculus, and a concern with the meaning of existence and with the role of human activity in bringing it about (rather than finding it ready-made somewhere). Yovel also emphasizes the dynamic character of Hegel's thought, with its emphasis on becoming, the abandoning of substance-based metaphysics, and historicism. Yovel finds that the key to developing these themes for contemporary thought lies in renouncing Hegel's inflated claims to certainty and to absolute knowledge. The result would be a philosophy that "would no longer be Hegel but would not have been possible without him." (p. 62)

The book concludes with a section on "Works on Hegel" in which Yovel describes some of the competing interpretations of Hegel that have been offered in recent years together with a select but detailed annotated bibliography for further study.

This book gave me more of an understanding and appreciation of Hegel than I had before I read it. Yovel's passion for his subject and for philosophy and his commitment to its importance is apparent on every page. This is not a book for the beginner in philosophy. But it is a rare book in that it will teach both readers new to Hegel as well as the readers who have studied him for many years.

Robin Friedman

There is no way to rate a book like this with stars.

I recommend this for anybody wanting further clarification on the Phenomenology of Spirit.