Formáli að Fyrirbærafræði andans

by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Skúli Pálsson (Translator)

Formáli að Fyrirbærafræði andans er ekki langur texti, en er þó í raun inngangur að lífsstarfi Hegels, hins áhrifamikla þýska heimspekings.

Þar leggur hann drögin að sínu þekktasta verki, Fyrirbærafræði andans, en lýsir um leið grundvelli hugsunar sinnar sem blómstraði áfram í verkum á borð við Söguspeki hans, Réttarheimspeki og Fagurfræði.

Í formálanum eru kynnt til sögunnar mörg þeirra hugtaka sem síðar verða byggingareiningarnar í heimspekikerfi Hegels. Formálinn er fyrsta verk Hegels sem kemur út á íslensku.

Þýðandi er Skúli Pálsson.

Genres: Philosophy, History, Psychology, Nonfiction, German Literature, Theory

133 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1807

About the author

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) was a German philosopher and one of the founding figures of German Idealism. Influenced by Kant's transcendental idealism and Rousseau's politics, Hegel formulated an elaborate system of historical development of ethics, government, and religion through the dialectical unfolding of the Absolute. Hegel was one of the most well-known historicist philosopher, and his thought presaged continental philosophy, including postmodernism. His system was inverted into a materialist ideology by Karl Marx, originally a member of the Young Hegelian faction.

Reviews

[robin friedman · Rating 5 out of 5]

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

[Amirsaman · Rating 3 out of 5]

کتابی درباره‌ی پیشگفتار کتاب پدیدارشناسی روح، به اضافه‌ی خود پیشگفتار هگل، و نیز شرح پیشگفتار به شکل پانویس.
عصاره‌ای از تفکر هگل در پیشگفتار پدیدارشناسی روح وجود دارد؛ به همین خاطر، این‌که بنا باشد فقط پیشگفتار (و نه متن کامل) را جداگانه در کتابی بخوانید، خارج از موضوع نیست. نیمه‌ی اول کتاب مقدمه‌ای است که نویسنده درباره‌ی هگل و پیشگفتار گفته است، و نیمه‌ی بعد، ترجمه‌ی انگلیسی نویسنده است از پیشگفتار. این ترجمه، بیانی شیوا و راحت‌تر از بیان آلمانی خود هگل دارد، و طبعا متفاوت از دو ترجمه‌ی معروف پینکارد و میلر. حالا این‌که آقای سامع در ترجمه‌ی فارسیِ این ترجمه‌ی انگلیسی چه‌کرده، تخصص من نیست.
شیوه‌ای که من برای خواندن پیشگفتار پیشنهاد می‌کنم، ابتدا خواندن هر بند از روی ترجمه‌ی کتاب آقای اردبیلی (نشر نی) است، بعد گوش کردن به توضیحات رامین جهانبگلو (جلسات ایشان را می‌توانید در سوندکلودِ صفحه‌ی انجمن فلسفی آگورا بیابید)، و در مرحله‌ی سوم، خواندن این کتاب. ویژگی منحصر به فرد کتاب آقای یوول، این است که تمام متن با پانویس‌هایی توضیح داده شده‌اند. گویی در کلاس درس هستید و استادی، هر عبارت دشوار را توضیح می‌دهد و منظور هر رفرنس هگل را به‌طور کامل بیان می‌کند. بخش زیادی از توضیحات جهانبگلو هم عملا در همین کتابِ مورد بحث پیدا می‌شود.
نهایتا این‌که، همان‌طور که هگل می‌گوید، خواندن و نوشتنِ پیشگفتار، میانبری نیست به فلسفه. بنابراین هدف باید خواندن خود کتاب هگل باشد، و این کتاب، راهی است برای آشنا شدن با مفاهیم هگل، و علاقه‌مند شدن به هزارتوی پدیدارشناسی.

[Jonah · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is no quick and short path to reading Hegel. Yovel's adroit exegesis will not only remind the impatient reader of this, but provide the broader scope of Hegel's project and intellectual engagement that the reader can explore more in depth in order to read him with greater depth and confidence. The translation attempts to make Hegel's sentences more terse and meticulously annotates difficult concepts and subtle references. It is an ideal read for a newcomer trying to work their way through the notoriously difficult preface.

[Karl Hallbjörnsson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Langar eiginlega bara að þýðana sjálfur

[Jason Zhao · Rating 5 out of 5]

Review too long, see:

https://open.substack.com/pub/jasonzh...

[Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the first books I read about philosophy was Will Durant's The Story of Philosophy, in which I discovered many strange men, one of them being Hegel. I sensed a deep optimism in him that I liked, in addition to the controversy surrounding him, particularly Schopenhauer's rants. Controversy usually attracts me, especially when other great thinkers either hate or love him, it signifies that there is something important going on.

While researching how to read philosophy, I discovered, dissapointedly, that reading modern philosophers basically required reading the ancient philosophers first. Simultaneously, I learned that Hegel is considered something like a "last boss" of philosophy, that makes reference to many his predecessors. So I read some of the ancients, mostly Plato, some Aristotle, then i tried to jump straight to Kant. That did not work, and I understood nothing. A few years and many books later, Kant opened up, even though his writing is dense, it is in a sense traditional and straightforward. Technical, rigorous, but manageable.

After having consumed some of Kant's thoughts, I assumed that Hegel would be somewhat understandable. He was not. I have tried reading the Phenomenology, listening to the Phenomenology, but each time I gave up about a third of the way in. Enveloping oneself in a book such as that is a strange experience, even when it is almost impenetrable, it's a journey for the mind. I decided I needed help, and was referred to reading secondary literature - and here I am.

The difficulty of reading Hegel is diverse. The translation, the long winded sentences, his implicit references to other philosophers, his new conception of what constitutes logic and so forth. All the while, a voice in my head kept sneaking up: "How could he possibly know these things? Is he just bullshitting? Is Hegel the biggest trickster in the history of philosophy?" - the thing is, the way Hegel thinks is so unusual and abstract, with such gigantic ambition, that it is hard to comprehend wether doing what he sets out to do is even possible.

In this work, I think Yovel provided some sort of key for unlocking the entrance gate to Hegel. The most helpful part is his insertion of brackets, to make explicit what is implicit, and also naming those philosophers Hegel are referring to, which of course, Hegel mostly does implicitly. Any writing about Hegel is doomed to be dense and difficult, which this book is, but it is at least easier than reading Hegel himself. One step closer to the Phenomenology, maybe, hopefully?

Missing one star, as reading a commentary - constantly jumping from the main text to Yovel's comments - is tedious, but it really is a good book for those seeking to understand the German mad man.

[Kári Þorkelsson · Rating 3 out of 5]

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).

[Jerin Tahapary]

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.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ugh, this took forever. Interestingly, the introduction to the Phenomenology is very clear and easy to read in comparison. I still don't understand a lot of what he wrote in this (who does? Hegel's famous last words about the only person who understood him not actually understanding him seem believable), so I'll probably come back to it shortly.

[adam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yovel's commentary on the Preface is superb (even if a bit too thorough), and his introduction is a clear introduction to Hegel's philosophy.

[Ali Jones Alkazemi · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is some of the best translations of Hegel's preface one can find in the english language. I assume at least. But this does not mean that other translations aren't possible. What do I mean by this? That Yovel, being a good translator, translates the preface of Hegel with a specific interpretation. His interpretation of this preface, is to show how Hegel's main goal with philosophy as a science takes the form of self-concious activity, unpacking the abstract point of knowledge the Spirit has arrived at in the historical process. We as subjects cannot rely on common sense, daily thought or abstractions if we are to philosophize, but are obliged to not take truths for granted. Truth needs to become concrete, by being thought through on our own, opening up for the experience of truth as something neccesary. Necessity here is not abstract, meaning something given and direct, but is rather a point at which we arrive when we ourselves indulge in the process of the becoming of truths.
The only problem with this book is the wierd format at which the commentary is presented, appearing as small notes and explanations every time Hegel writes something with a slight possibility of being hard. This does not mean that I didn't appreciate the commentary, as Yovel shows many links between Hegel's sayings and German Idealist thought. Good read!

[Régime des fleurs 🌷☭🍝🫖 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Slayyyyyyyyy
lecture un peu ardue mais je m’y attendais!

[Tarbuckle · Rating 3 out of 5]

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.

[Andy · Rating 2 out of 5]

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.

[Giovanni Generoso · Rating 5 out of 5]

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!

[Jean-charles · Rating 4 out of 5]

Avec une très utile présentation du texte allemand en page gauche et une traduction plus aérienne (!), ce livre ravira les amateurs de Hegel, d'autant que le vade-mecum qui suit le texte reprend les passages qu'une première lecture aurait pu laisser dans l'obscurité.

Une citation pour la route: "... l'attitude antihumaine, animale, consiste à demeurer dans le sentiment et à ne pouvoir communiquer que par lui." p. 145.

"Das widermenschliche, das thierische besteht darin, im Gefühle stehen zu bleiben, und nur durch dieses mittheilen zu können." (§ 70)

[Jon · Rating 5 out of 5]

The translation is much clearer than the standard Miller and the commentary really opens the text making for an excellent introduction. Hoping that he (or someone) decides to do something similar for the entirety of the phenomenology or encyclopedia down the line. Understanding Hegel is hard enough that any resource is a good resource - this is a great one.

[Chuck · Rating 4 out of 5]

Little of the secondary literature on Hegel is worthwhile, but Yovel's commentary was exceptional.

[Kang · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 stars for Yovel's commentary, which is clear and especially well-suited to helping beginners understand Hegel, but not brilliant. 4 stars for his translation.

[Jason]

i hear it's a real lol comedy riot.

[Oralmajority · Rating 5 out of 5]

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

[Berit · Rating 4 out of 5]

Incredibly dense (as Hegel is bound to be) but Yovel's commentary is extremely helpful.

[dimwig · Rating 4 out of 5]

someone said you only have to read the preface. i did and it was good.

[Grant]

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

[Neal Spadafora · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was extremely helpful. I had previously read the preface a couple of times and did not walk away with much. However, I think I now have a solid idea of what Hegel is up to in that text. Here is my summary of Yovel's very helpful and succinct introductory essay:

Written in Jena while the French were defeating the Prussian Army, H composed the “Preface” after completion of The Phenomenology.

Through the changing networks of social relations—which are grounded on the human striving for recognition and self-hood—and through the historical evolution of these social forms, H thinks that something is going on that transcends the purely social. That is, he thinks being is made actual and known to itself. In this way, H’s social thought cannot be separated from his ontological thought, as many interpreters want to do.

Similarly, H regards philosophy as having transcended religion by having the capability to recognize religion’s spiritual content. That is, H holds that reason, philosophy, is superior to image and metaphor. Yet, “the is rational only in so far as it contains the essence of the experiences of imagining, feeling, and real being, and links them to a historical tradition” (3). The type of thinking that excludes feeling and history from reason H associates with the Enlightenment and designates as “Understanding,” as Verstand, rather than as Reason [Vernunft]. Relatedly, religion, for H, endows philosophy with experiential and historical depth. In short, the Hegelian dialectic is supposed to evolve through the practical and secular means of work, family, social concerns, and political participation in the state. It also evolves through ordinary religious practice. In this way, the highest spiritual states need to be realized in worldly life. Indeed, it is this practical and ordinary domain of life over which the owl of Minerva spreads its wings. Equally distinctive of the way H connects theory and life is his argument that the institutional anchors of the self, which he designates as ‘objective spirit,’ serve to realize ‘absolute spirit.’ Thus, H stresses spirit’s anchoring in the empirical world. However, spirit is the unifying, or totalizing, principle of these empirical happenings.

From an ontological standpoint, insisting that the true is not only substance, but subject, as H does in Preface, is to insist that being itself exists as a process. As far as it concerns the subject, it is not merely self-identical but proceeds towards itself through its opposites. This is true of the Absolute Subject, too. In this way, Hegel uses the Kantian model of the subject as finite, conditioned, and social, but expanded it to include the infinite, absolute Being. This being, given it is a subject, exists as a becoming totality, rather than a static one. Like this subject, knowledge depends on its own journey through history and all its affective, social, and political forms.

As far as the dialectic is concerned, a few generalized statements can be made. Spirit’s rational essence needs its other (i.e., empirical existence and all its affective weight and contingency) as a medium for its own development. The rational essence must become other than itself to become itself. Rational essence thus exist only as itself at the end of its road; early in history it is abstract and latent. Dialectical logic thus becomes conscious of itself. In dialectical logic, the life and evolution of its consciousness maintains that which it negates, it ‘recollects’ the negated. Unlike formal logic, the dialectic has no a priori rules.

Similarly, the dialectic has an educational-subjective role. That is, the individual goes beyond their own immediate consciousness and begins to recognize truth as their own—as an expression of themselves. Within a personal milieu, the person is driven beyond themselves and their positions in search of new positions. As such, rationality cannot be imposed externally, but it must become one’s own.

Regarding the people H critiques in the Preface, it’s evident that he dismisses Hölderlin’s claim that the absolute is ineffable. For H, the absolute does not ground knowledge while not being implicated in it. Similarly, H disagrees with Hölderlin’s claim that one can experience immediacy in existence. H argued that a complex set of mediacies informs how that existence is perceived. Even though H also sharply disagrees with Schelling, Fichte is the main object of critique in the Preface; especially Fichte’s claim that absolute primacy and absolute identity could be attributed to the ‘I.’ For H, such an insistence on the absolute’s self-identity reduces the absolute, and thus our processual becoming, to an undifferentiated form.

Tangentially, speculative reason is a hybrid between rationality and the intellectual intuition that can experience and deduce the first principles of life. It is a way relating particulars and universals to one another.

[Benjamin Pennacchio · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

[Medhat ullah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Abstract nonsense considering dialectical propositions to know what absolute knowing is?, consciousness is?
"Consciousness is the first step toward the knowledge of reality, but it is itself only a limited and contingent form of knowledge."

[Caleb Ingegneri · Rating 4 out of 5]

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

[Clayne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Extremely helpful.

[Hunter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent commentary