Phenomenology of Spirit: Amazon.ca: G. W. F. Hegel: Books

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Book Description

This brilliant study of the stages in the mind's necessary progress from immediate sense-consciousness to the position of a scientific philosophy includes an introductory essay and a paragraph-by-paragraph analysis of the text to help the reader understand this most difficult and most influential of Hegel's works.

About the Author

G.W.F. Hegel (1770-1831) is one of the great figures in the history of Western thought, and the most important philosopher of his time.

Inside This Book (Learn More)

First Sentence
90. The knowledge or knowing which is at the start or is immediately our object cannot be anything else but immediate knowledge itself, a knowledge of the immediate or of what simply is. Read the first page

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Concordance

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Customer Reviews

33 Reviews

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Average Customer Review

3.8 out of 5 stars (33 customer reviews)

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5.0 out of 5 stars Transformative Text in the History of Philosophy, Dec 26 2003

By

John Russon (Toronto ON Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Phenomenology of Spirit (Paperback)

It doesn't make any sense to rate this work at anything less than 5 stars, since it's one of the most influential works of the last 200 years. It was written in 1806, and it is Hegel's attempt to demonstrate the systematic way in which human experience develops, from its simplest roots in sensory life to its highest fulfilment in scientific, political and religious experience. This was a work that took Kant's revolutionary insights and produced a new philosophy of the human person that prefigured the developments of Marx, Freud, existentialism, deconstruction and so on. Human experience is here understood in a rigorously anti-reductive way: Hegel will not allow meaningful dimensions of human experience to be ignored in the way that they typically are in too-facile theories of experience (like sense-data empiricism, physicalist reductionism, possessive individualism, etc.). Experience is also understood dynamically: because of its own internal reason, experience develops into progressively more complex forms. It is a masterful work, and it takes years of serious study to master this book. It is a very difficult book to work with, because it is written in a very daunting manner, which means it is not realistic to imagine reading it outside of a university course in which someone can lead you into the reading of Hegel's phenomenology. This translation by Miller is also imperfect. This translation was meant as an improvement to the older Baillie translation but, while this one is marginally more "literal," it does not do as good a job as Baillie at communicating the sense of what's being said. If you can only have one translation, this is probably the better choice, but if you are studying the book seriously, I highly recommend hunting down a copy of Baillie's translation as well.

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5.0 out of 5 stars Western Cognitive Enlightenment, April 27 2004

By

Bill Wachmer - billwachmer@snip.net (Hatfield, PA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Phenomenology of Spirit (Paperback)

Hegel's famous and difficult 45-page Preface to his Phenomenology of Spirit requires intensive study, but will reward the serious reader with nothing less than a cognitive enlightenment.

By loosening our grip on our rigid habit of self-conceptualizing and by releasing our self from our self-concepts, we begin to master our cognitive process and know ourself as this self-moving process. By this fluid detachment we gain the power to think, and without fear of being attached to our thoughts. We can, if we desire, more easily detach ourselves from being role-bound and tasked. We more easily live, and become, and recognize some of our fears as of our own making. And we are not so readily mediated by outside agencies, such as we have and are surrounded by in the 21st Century.

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5.0 out of 5 stars A very significant book, Feb 19 2004

By

W. Jamison "William S. Jamison" (Eagle River, Ak United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

This review is from: Phenomenology of Spirit (Paperback)

A very significant book

This book was a turning point for me in my personal quest. Up until this point each philosopher I learned about in class was torn apart by the next philosopher. Hegel approached things differently and made it possible for me to learn what "sublated" means. Those philosophers were not being "torn apart" by their successors. Instead, the history of thought can be seen as the logical interplay of ideas gradually creating better ideas. The previous ideas are incorporated in an ever more mature view. This is how we view history. This is why sociology seems to be the philosophy of our day - the sociality of reason.
But this book is deeply embedded in a historical context itself and makes sense only with a good guide. For an interesting way to do this look at Hans Kung's description of his experience of Hegel in his memoirs. For an excellent guide I recommend Pinkard or Kaufmann. My own thesis is on Hegel's Geist.
No philosopher since has ever torn apart another philosopher in my view even if they try to deconstruct them.

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Most recent customer reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Influential book, but don't get carried away
Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit is doubtlessly one of the most influential works of philosophy ever compiled. Read more

Published on Aug 9 2009 by T. McLaughlin

4.0 out of 5 stars On Signs Of Being *Au Fait* With The Derive Of Relatives
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel's *Phenomenology of Spirit* is the single most important book of philosophy ever published, surpassing the *Critique of Pure Reason* in influence by... Read more

Published on Mar 4 2004 by Jeffrey Rubard