20 Best Books On Hegel (2023 Update)

"hegel's phenomenology was written, so the story goes, on the eve of napoleon's destruction of the holy roman empire and at the beginning of the german 'wars of liberation.' the book itself is no less dramatic or revolutionary. it is hegel's grandest experiment, changing our vision of the world and the very nature of the philosophical enterprise. "in the rightfully famous preface, hegel lays out the principles that define the rest of his work and so much philosophy to follow. in the introduction, he briefly summarizes the argument that completes kant's philosophical revolution, rendering skepticism a dead issue and idealism an inspiring call to change and self-realization. in 'consciousness,' he anticipates some of the most radical insights of contemporary epistemology, defending kant and fichte and moving beyond them to the work of the later wittgenstein. in 'self-consciousness,' he provides a model of self and self-identity which begins a new era in philosophy, inspiring marx and sartre and so many others. and as he develops his symphony of 'reason,' hegel puts into harmony ethics and autonomy, ancient philosophy and tragedy, byronic romanticism, german poetry, the enlightenment, the french revolution, the concept of virtue, the history of religion (including an ambiguous defense and critique of modern christianity), the beginnings of a new philosophy of science and kant's moral philosophy. all are tied together with the dazzling if sometimes bewildering leaps in logic that have come to be known as 'hegel's dialectic.'

Hegel'sphenomenology of spirit is probablyhis most famous work. first published in 1807, it has exercised considerableinfluence on subsequent thinkers from feuerbach and marx to heidegger, kojève,adorno and derrida. the book contains many memorable analyses of, for example,the master / slave dialectic, the unhappy consciousness, sophocles' antigone and the french revolution andis one of the most important works in the western philosophical tradition. itis, however, a difficult and challenging book and needs to be studied togetherwith a clear and accessible secondary text. stephen houlgate's reader's guideoffers guidance on: philosophicaland historical contextkeythemesreadingthe textreceptionand influencefurtherreading

This book provides a comprehensive survey of hegel's philosophical thought via a systematic exploration of over 100 key terms, from `absolute' to `will'. by exploring both the etymological background of such terms and hegel's particular use of them, michael inwood clarifies for the modern reader much that has been regarded as difficult and obscure in hegel's work.

In this path-breaking work, susan buck-morss draws new connections between history, inequality, social conflict, and human emancipation. hegel, haiti, and universal history offers a fundamental reinterpretation of hegel's master-slave dialectic and points to a way forward to free critical theoretical practice from the prison-house of its own debates. historicizing the thought of georg wilhelm friedrich hegel and the actions taken in the haitian revolution, buck-morss examines the startling connections between the two and challenges us to widen the boundaries of our historical imagination. she finds that it is in the discontinuities of historical flow, the edges of human experience, and the unexpected linkages between cultures that the possibility to transcend limits is discovered. it is these flashes of clarity that open the potential for understanding in spite of cultural differences. what buck-morss proposes amounts to a “new humanism,” one that goes beyond the usual ideological implications of such a phrase to embrace a radical neutrality that insists on the permeability of the space between opposing sides and as it reaches for a common humanity.

One of hegel’s most controversial and confounding claims is that “the real is rational and the rational is real.” in this book, one of the world’s leading scholars of hegel, jean-françois kervégan, offers a thorough analysis and explanation of that claim, along the way delivering a compelling account of modern social, political, and ethical life. ​ kervégan begins with hegel’s term “objective spirit,” the public manifestation of our deepest commitments, the binding norms that shape our existence as subjects and agents. he examines objective spirit in three realms: the notion of right, the theory of society, and the state. in conversation with tocqueville and other theorists of democracy, whether in the anglophone world or in europe, kervégan shows how hegel—often associated with grand metaphysical ideas—actually had a specific conception of civil society and the state. in hegel’s view, public institutions represent the fulfillment of deep subjective needs—and in that sense, demonstrate that the real is the rational, because what surrounds us is the product of our collective mindedness. this groundbreaking analysis will guide the study of hegel and nineteenth-century political thought for years to come.

The present reissue of wallace's translation of hegel's philosophy of mind includes the zusatze or lecture-notes which, in the collected works, accompany the first section entitled "subjective mind" and which wallace omitted from his translation. professor j. n. findlay has written a foreword and this replaces wallace's introductory essays.

Hodgson hegel's lectures have had as great a historical impact as the works he himself published. important elements of his system are elaborated only in the lectures, especially those given in berlin during the last decade of his life. the original editors conflated materials from different sources and dates, obscuring the development and logic of hegel's thought. the hegel lectures series is based on a selection of extant and recently discovered transcripts and manuscripts. lectures from specific years are reconstructed so that the structure of hegel's argument can be followed. each volume presents an accurate new translation accompanied by an editorial introduction and annotations on the text, which make possible the identification of hegel's many allusions and sources. hegel's lectures on the philosophy of religion represent the final and in some ways the decisive element of his entire philosophical system. the older editions introduced insoluble problems by conflating these materials into an editorially constructed text. the present volumes establish a critical edition by separating the series of lectures and presenting them as independent units on the basis of a complete re-editing of the sources by walter jaeschke. the english translation has been prepared by a team consisting of robert f. michael stewart, with the assistance of h. s. harris. now widely recognized as the definitive english edition, it is being reissued by oxford in the hegel lectures series. the three volumes include editorial introductions, critical annotations on the text, textual variants, and tables, bibliography, and glossary. hegel's 'introduction' establishes the new discipline of philosophy of religion and positions it vis-à-vis the philosophical, theological, cultural, and epistemological issues of the time. 'the concept of religion' sets forth a speculative definition of religion and discusses the experience, concept, knowledge, and worship of god.

Hegel is one of the most important modern philosophers, whose thought influenced the development of existentialism, marxism, pragmatism, hermeneutics, and deconstruction. yet hegel's central text, the monumental science of logic, still remains for most philosophers (both figuratively and literally) a firmly closed book. the purpose of the opening of hegel's logic is to dispel the myths that surround the logic and to show that hegel's unjustly neglected text is a work of extraordinary subtlety and insight. part one of the opening of hegel's logic argues that the logic provides a rigorous derivation of the fundamental categories of thought and contrasts hegel's approach to the categories with that of kant. it goes on to examine the historical and linguistic presuppositions of hegel's self-critical, "presuppositionless" logic and, in the process, considers several signifi-cant criticisms of such logic advanced by schelling, feuerbach, gadamer, and kierkegaard. separate chapters are devoted to the relation between logic and ontology in hegel's logic and to the relation between the logic itself and the phenomenology. part two contains the text – in german and english – of the first two chapters of hegel's logic, which cover such categories as being, becoming, something, limit, finitude, and infinity. part three then provides a clear and accessible commentary on these two chapters that both examines hegel's arguments in detail and relates his insights to those of other philosophers, such as descartes, spinoza, kant, nietzsche, and levinas. the opening of hegel's logic aims to help students and scholars read hegel's often formidably difficult text for themselves and discover the wealth of philosophical riches that it contains. it also argues that hegel's project of a presuppositionless science of logic is one that deserves serious consideration today.

The hegel reader is the most comprehensive collection of hegel's writings currently available in english. it contains four important "early writings", as well as selections from hegel's mature writings and lectures which are central to his system and also have special relevance for post-hegelian thinkers. there is also an extensive bibliography listing the main german editions of hegel's works, most of the currently available english translations of his texts, as well as a selection of important secondary works.

German philosophers contains studies of four of the most important german theorists: kant, arguably the most influential modern philosopher; hegel, whose philosophy inspired a vision of a communist society that for more than one hundred years enlivened revolutionary movements around the world; schopenhauer, renowned for his pessimistic view that for human individual non-existence would be preferable; and nietzsche, who has been appropriated as an icon by an astonishingly diverse spectrum of people. written by leading scholars in the field, german philosophers is the only work to bring together texts on the four philosophers who represent a central school of german philosophy. with a foreword by sir keith thomas and extensive notes for further reading, this handy volume serves as an easy-to-use introduction for the beginning philosophy student and a quick and comprehensive reference for scholars.

Peter kalkavage'sthe logic of desire guides the reader through hegel's great work. given the book's legendary difficulty, one may well ask, "why even try to read the phenomenology?" in his preface, kalkavage explains why he thinks a reader should try: there is much to commend the study of hegel: his attentiveness to the deepest, most fundamental questions of philosophy, his uncompromising pursuit of truth, his amazing gift for characterization and critique, his appreciation for the grand sweep of things and the large view, his profound admiration for all that is heroic, especially for the ancient greeks, those heroes of thought in whom the philosophic spirit first dawned, his penetrating gaze into modernity in all its forms, his enormous breadth of interests, and his audacious claim to have captured absolute knowing in a thoroughly rational account. according to kalkavage, the phenomenology belongs to a quartet of the greatest works on education. the other three members of the quartet are plato's republic, dante's divine comedy, and rousseau's emile. no genuine philosophic education can omit a serious encounter with this giant of the modern age, the giant who absorbed all the worlds of spiritual vitality that came before him and tried to organize them into a coherent whole. "this book comes as close as i have seen to a guide to hegel for the 'courageous non-specialist,' to employ mr. kalkavage's expression. he writes from what is obviously a lengthy and deep study of hegel and of the phenomenology in particular. there is no patronising of hegel's complex teaching. the technical terminology is not avoided or concealed by the jovial jargon of a study manual. kalkavage has mastered the art of presenting topics of great difficulty in a way that will instruct specialists as well as non-specialists. i found especially illuminating his portrait of determinate negation and the difference between consciousness and the phenomenolgical observer. this book should be in every college and university library."–stanley rosen "having taught philosophy to undergraduates for the past thirty-nine years, i can especially appreciate the value of peter kalkavage's book,the logic of desire. this work will truly benefit anyone who wishes to learn what hegel himself is teaching in his first major volume. it provides remarkable insights on hegel's complex work as a whole as well as serving as a sure guide for every chapter and for virtually every paragraph. even the many endnotes are very valuable. it should be made readily available to every undergraduate who has to read any part of the phenomenology."–dr. donald c. lindenmuth, pennsylvania state university peter kalkavage is a member of the senior faculty at st. john's college in annapolis, maryland, where he has taught for thirty years. he is the author of numerous articles on philosophy. he translated plato's timaeus and co-translated plato's phaedo and sophist.

Hegel's encyclopaedia logic constitutes the foundation of the system of philosophy presented in his encyclopaedia of the philosophical sciences. together with his science of logic, it contains the most explicit formulation of his enduringly influential dialectical method and of the categorical system underlying his thought. it offers a more compact presentation of his dialectical method than is found elsewhere, and also incorporates changes that he would have made to the second edition of the science of logic if he had lived to do so. this volume presents it in a new translation with a helpful introduction and notes. it will be a valuable reference work for scholars and students of hegel and german idealism, as well as for those who are interested in the post-hegelian character of contemporary philosophy.

"hegel's geschichte der philosophie was one of the grand products of the renaissance in historical learning that took place in early nineteenth-century germany. . . . hegel remains relevant today for his recognition that any self-critical philosophy must include a knowledge of its own history. a self-aware philosopher, hegel firmly believed, knew where his ideas came from and their social and cultural context. . . . this is still the only available translation of all three volumes of hegel's history."-frederick c. beiser. "the main reason why hegel will remain worthy of study lies in his incomparable gathering together of the whole range of human experience into vital connection with what is best in that experience. . . . he is, without doubt, the aristotle of our post-renaissance world."-j. n. findlay, hegel: a re-examination. g. w. hegel (1770-1831), the influential german philosopher, believed that human history was advancing spiritually and morally according to god's purpose. at the beginning of this masterwork, hegel writes: "what the history of philosophy shows us is a succession of noble minds, a gallery of heroes of thought, who, by the power of reason, have penetrated into the being of things, of nature and of spirit, into the being of god, and have won for us by their labours the highest treasure, the treasure of reasoned knowledge." in his introduction to this bison book edition, frederick c. beiser notes the complex and controversial history of hegel's text. he makes a case that this english-language translation by e. s. haldane and frances h. simson is still the most reliable one. a professor of philosophy at indiana university, beiser is the author of the fate of reason: german philosophy from kante to fichte.

2019 reprint of 1894 edition. full facsimile of the original edition, not reproduced with optical recognition software. the encyclopaedia of the philosophical sciences by georg wilhelm friedrich hegel (first published in 1817) is a work that presents an abbreviated version of hegel's systematic philosophy in its entirety and is the only form in which hegel ever published his entire mature philosophical system. the fact that the account is exhaustive, that the grounding structures of reality are ideal, and that the system is closed makes the encyclopedia a statement par excellence of absolute idealism. the present work represents part three of the encyclopaedia of the philosophical sciences published separately as hegel's philosophy of mind. this scholarly translated by undertaken by william wallace and published by oxford university press.

This is a study of the rise of hegelian thought throughout the intellectual world and in germany in the first half of the nineteenth century. the book has three interrelated purposes. first, it constitutes the first synthetic description and comprehensive reconstruction of the historical genesis and humanist transformation of hegelian ideology. secondly, the study addresses the problem of recurrent patterns of hope and disillusionment in the successive phases of dialectical thought. finally, the book is concerned with ideological responses to the experience of communal and religious disintegration.

This book introduces hegel's best-known and most influential work, phenomenology of spirit, by interpreting it as a unified argument for a single philosophical claim: that human beings achieve their freedom through retrospective self-understanding. in clear, non-technical prose, larry krasnoff sets this claim in the context of the history of modern philosophy and shows how it is developed in the major sections of hegel's text. the result is an accessible and engaging guide to one of the most complex and important works of nineteenth-century philosophy, which will be of interest to all students and teachers working in this area.

This book introduces hegel's best-known and most influential work, phenomenology of spirit, by interpreting it as a unified argument for a single philosophical claim: that human beings achieve their freedom through retrospective self-understanding. in clear, non-technical prose, larry krasnoff sets this claim in the context of the history of modern philosophy and shows how it is developed in the major sections of hegel's text. the result is an accessible and engaging guide to one of the most complex and important works of nineteenth-century philosophy, which will be of interest to all students and teachers working in this area.

With the rise of analytical philosophy the criticism against hegelianism has become increasingly shrill, and signs of an embarrassment that hegel's philosophy should ever have arisen are noticeable in such inftuential works as those of karl popper and hans reichenbach, to mention but a few. however, many contemporary philosophers stress what is called subjectivity, conceiving reality as susceptible of methodical analysis only to the extent that it is in and for the subject. what is more, they not only insist on the importance of the subject for philosophy, but maintain that the subject must be conceived as the principal determinative of true objectivity. since knowledge depends for its possibility on the inseverable correlatives of consciousness and reality, they would grant that a proper importance must be given to both subject and object. still, exemplifying the relational principle within the unity of a dual structure, the subject serves as an exclu- sive agent that provides ingress into the meaning of the object.

Georg hegel changed how history was philosophically understood. his influential writings on politics, history, art and philosophy are part of a larger systematic whole, and their effect on the ideas and political events of the 20th century has been profound. yet they remain among the moot difficult in the entire history of philosophy. increasing numbers of people are looking to the philosophers of the past to shed light on the contemporary condition. hegel's theories echo through the writings of marx, lacan, sartre and adorno and introducing hegel provides new perspectives on contemporary postmodern debates about "meta-narratives" (lyotard) and the "end of history" (fukuyama).

This hardcover edition of hegel's landmark work of philosophy contains the authoritative and respected translation of j.b. the phenomenology of spirit, also known as the phenomenology of mind, contains methodical discussions of hegelian examination of mind and mental functioning. in hegelianist philosophy, the notion of the spirit or mind commences with a consideration of the subjective (i.e. individual) mind. after some contemplation however, it is realised that this 'individual' sort of mind is but the initial stage of the process – the so-called 'in-itself stage'. the stage which follows this is that of the objective mind – it is this type of mind that finds itself object of law, morals and government. this frames the condition of the mind when it is out-of-itself. the final stage of the hegelianist posit upon the mind is that of the 'absolute mind'. at this point, the mind ascends above the constraints of the natural world and of mankind's institutions and laws.