Product Description

Expounds upon consciousness, self-consciousness, reason, spirit, religion and absolute knowing and also supports Kant, denounces skepticism and hails idealism.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #31608 in Books
• Published on: 1979-06-14
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 595 pages

Customer Reviews

One of the most important books in western philosophy
Hegel's Phenomenology is probably the most influential book in modern philosophy. The influence is very strong in the more contemporary thinkers such as Marx, Heidegger, Sartre, Lacan, Marcuse, Habermas, and more. The book has been very important in the schools of philosophy that deal with historisization and phenomenology. Hegel was not a poor writer; actually his writing (in German) was very eloquent and clear, taking full advantage of the rich, complex German language. Unfortunatly much of his writings have been poorly translated, but this is not a suprise. The topics which Hegel takes up in the Phenomenology are very complex and the whole book is based on the Hegelian dialectic, which has been misrepresented becuase of its complexity and that it has been accused as being a tract of Nazism and Stalism, wehich are absolutely false (look at Marcuse's Reason and Revolution). People who cannot understand the Phenomenology immediately accuse Hegel of being a poor writer, but that is a cop out becuse they think that whatever they can't understanding must be the result of bad writing. Those individuals who think that Hegel was a poor writer are simply poor thinkers.

One of the great books of Philosophy. Worth the effort.
Hegel was the first writer to present a Science of Human Experience. His term for this is Phenomenology. His basic theory is that Human Experience evolves or develops from rudimentary states to higher states of consciousness.

In an ascending Ladder, Hegel presents the following evolution of Consciousness (this is a very sketchy outline):

1. Sense-Certainty 2. Perceptual Consciousness 3. The Pure Understanding 4. Self-Consciousness - Desire - The Master/Slave Struggle - Stoic Consciousness - Skeptic Consciousness - Cynic Consciousness - Unhappy (Monk) Consciousness - Idealist Consciousness 5. Rational Consciousness (Reason) - Scientific Consciousness - Ethical Consciousness - Legal Consciousness 6. Spiritual Consciousness - Tragic Consciousness - Alienated Consciousness - Lacerated (Bohemian) Consciousness - Duty Consciousness - Freedom Consciousness - Forgiveness Consciousness 7. Religious Consciousness - Religion of Nature - Religion of Art - Religion of Revelation 8. Philosophy Consciousness - Dialectic Consciousness - Spirit Consciousness - Absolute Consciousness.

Hegel richly deserved all the attention he got in the past 190 years from our best thinkers.

Consider the heigths and depths of books in print
It is easy to dismiss a book because it is 'difficult'. Hegel's Phenomenology is indeed difficult. But how could it be otherwise? It is designed to invert a pattern of thought that has been in place for more than 2000 years. The best minds of our age--Marx, Heidegger, Kojeve--have wrestled with it. No one has yet pinned it down. That is a challenge worth facing, like Everest, because it is there.