Category: German Idealism
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The End of Literature, Hegel, and the Contemporary Novel
This book explores the concept of the end of literature through the lens of Hegel’s philosophy of art. In his version of Hegel’s ‘end of art’ thesis, Arthur Danto claimed that contemporary art has abandoned its distinctive sensitive and emotive features to become increasingly reflective. Contemporary art has become a question of philosophical reflection on […]
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Hegel’s Concept of Life: Self-Consciousness, Freedom, Logic
Karen Ng sheds new light on Hegel’s famously impenetrable philosophy. She does so by offering a new interpretation of Hegel’s idealism and by foregrounding Hegel’s Science of Logic, revealing that Hegel’s theory of reason revolves around the concept of organic life. Beginning with the influence of Kant’s Critique of Judgment on Hegel, Ng argues that Hegel’s key philosophical […]
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Hegel’s Phenomenology: A Philosophical Introduction
This book is complementary introduction to Hegel’s Phenomenology. It follows through Hegel’s thought chapter by chapter. While not a simple exegesis, this book is the commentary and recapturing of the book. It recaptures the nub of each chapter, not in simple briefing, but in the way to place Hegel against other philosophers like Descartes, Locke, […]
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Picturing Hegel: An Illustrated Guide to Hegel’s Encyclopaedia Logic
In her innovative take on G.W. F. Hegel’s The Encyclopaedia Logic, Julie E. Maybee uses pictures and diagrams to cut through the philosopher’s dense, difficult writing. Picturing Hegel: An Illustrated Guide to Hegel’s Encyclopaedia Logic utilizes diagrams in order to rehabilitate Hegel’s logic for serious consideration by showing how each stage develops step-by-step from earlier stages according to […]
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Apocalyptic Political Theology: Hegel, Taubes and Malabou
Hegel’s philosophy of religion contains an implicit political theology. When viewed in connection with his wider work on subjectivity, history and politics, this political theology is a resource for apocalyptic thinking. In a world of climate change, inequality, oppressive gender roles and racism, Hegel can be used to theorise the hope found in the end […]
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Hegel’s Theory of Normativity: The Systematic Foundations of the Philosophical Science of Right
Hegel’s Elements of the Philosophy of Right offers an innovative and important account of normativity, yet the theory set forth there rests on philosophical foundations that have remained largely obscure. In Hegel’s Theory of Normativity, Kevin Thompson proposes an interpretation of the foundations that underlie Hegel’s theory: its method of justification, its concept of freedom, and its account of […]
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‘Hegel’s Concept of Experience’ by Martin Heidegger
Martin Heidegger’s writings on Hegel are notoriously difficult but show an essential engagement between two of the foundational thinkers of phenomenology. Joseph Arel and Neils Feuerhahn provide a clear and careful translation of Volume 68 of the Complete Works, which is comprised of two shorter texts—a treatise on negativity, and a penetrating reading of Hegel’s […]
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Hegel’s Actuality Chapter of the Science of Logic: A Commentary
This book explores Hegel’s theory of modality (actuality, possibility, necessity, contingency) through extremely close textual analysis of the “Actuality” chapter of Hegel’s Science of Logic. The “Actuality” chapter is the equivalence of Aristotle’s momentous Metaphysics book 9. Because of this, Hegel’s chapter deserves the same thorough investigation into its complex insights and argumentation. This book […]
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Philosophy and Politics: A Commentary on the Preface to Hegel’s Philosophy of Right
There is a didactical as well as a philosophical importance to providing a commentary on the Preface to Hegel’s handbook on the Philosophy of Right. Considering the fact that the text brings us the thought of a great and difficult philosopher in a non-rigorous, “exoteric” way, it is well suited to the task of introducing […]
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Hegel in His Time
Georg Wilhelm Freidrich Hegel is now recognized as one of the great philosophers; his concept of the dialectic profoundly influenced the course of Western thought, and—particularly through the lens of Marxist philosophy—continues to exert great influence even today. Yet Hegel himself has often been accused of being a philosopher of reaction: on the political sphere […]
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Contradiction in Motion: Hegel’s Organic Concept of Life and Value
“Everything is contradictory,” Hegel declares in Science of Logic. In this analysis of one of the most difficult and neglected topics in Hegelian studies, Songsuk Susan Hahn tackles the status of contradiction in Hegel’s thought. Properly philosophical thinking in the Hegelian mode recognizes that contradiction pervades all organic forms of life. Contradiction in Motion presents Hegel’s doctrine of […]
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‘On Hegel’s Philosophy of Right: The 1934-35 Seminar and Interpretive Essays’ by Martin Heidegger
This is the first English translation of the seminar Martin Heidegger gave during the Winter of 1934-35, which dealt with Hegel’s Philosophy of Right. This remarkable text is the only one in which Heidegger interprets Hegel’s masterpiece in the tradition of Continental political philosophy while offering a glimpse into Heidegger’s own political thought following his […]
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Hegel’s Interpretation of the Religions of the World. The Logic of the Gods
In his Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion, Hegel treats the religions of the world under the rubric “the determinate religion.” This is a part of his corpus that has traditionally been neglected since scholars have struggled to understand what philosophical work it is supposed to do. In Hegel’s Interpretation of the Religions of the World, Jon Stewart argues […]
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God and the Self in Hegel: Beyond Subjectivism
This book proposes a reconstruction of Hegel’s conception of God and analyzes the significance of this reading for Hegel’s idealistic metaphysics. Paolo Diego Bubbio argues that in Hegel’s view, subjectivism—the tenet that there is no underlying “true” reality that exists independently of the activity of the cognitive agent—can be avoided, and content can be restored to […]
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Hegel’s Trinitarian Claim: A Critical Reflection
Hegel’s philosophical interpretation of Trinity as a dialectically developing movement of Spirit is one of the most profound readings of Trinity in Western thought. In Hegel’s Trinitarian Claim, Dale M. Schlitt provides a careful, detailed presentation of this claim in Hegel’s major published works and in his lectures on the philosophy of religion, taking a critical […]
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Hegel’s Lectures on the Proofs of the Existence of God
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 […]
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Hegel’s System of Logic: The Absolute Idea as Form of Forms
In the Lectures on the Proofs of the Existence of God, prepared just before his death, Hegel states that the question of proving God can receive its “scientific” treatment in the Science of Logic and nowhere else. He also states that Logic, at least his logical system, is the same as that of metaphysics. Here, […]
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Hegel’s Theology or Revelation Thematised
This book highlights Hegel’s application of Absolute Idealism’s logical truth, the basis of all mystical insight, to Christian orthodox confession. The systematic interpretation thus yielded illuminates the profound spirituality of this unitary sophia as (the) idea. The truth represented by spontaneous pictorial presentation, in Biblical or other proclamations at other times, is thereby further unveiled, […]
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Hegel in the Arab World: Modernity, Colonialism, and Freedom
Hegel’s philosophy has been of fundamental importance for the development of contemporary thought and for the very representation of Western modernity. This book investigates Hegel’s influence in the Arab world, generally considered “other” and far from the West, focusing specifically on Syria, Lebanon, and Egypt. Lorella Ventura discusses the reception of Hegelian thought and outlines […]
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Hegel, Marx, and the Necessity and Freedom Dialectic: Marxist-Humanism and Critical Theory in the United States
This book provides close readings of primary texts to analyze the linkage between G.W.F. Hegel’s philosophy and Karl Marx’s critical social theory of necessity and freedom. This is important for three reasons: first, to understand the significance of the changing relationships of work, society, and critical social theory in the origins of Hegelian-Marxism in the […]
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The Perfection of Freedom: Schiller, Schelling, and Hegel between the Ancients and the Moderns
The Perfection of Freedom seeks to respond to the impoverished conventional notion of freedom through a recovery of an understanding rich with possibilities yet all but forgotten in contemporary thought. This understanding, developed in different but complementary ways in the German thinkers Schiller, Schelling, and Hegel, connects freedom, not exclusively with power and possibility, but […]
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Modern Freedom: Hegel’s Legal, Moral, and Political Philosophy
This book, the result of 40 years of Hegel research, gives an integral interpretation of G.W.F. Hegel’s mature practical philosophy as contained in his textbook, Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts, published in 1820, and the courses he gave on the same subject between 1817 and 1830. The content of Hegel’s book encompasses not only “right” […]
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Hegel and Ancient Philosophy: A Re-Examination
Hegel’s debts to ancient philosophy are widely acknowledged by scholars, and by the philosopher himself. Roughly half of his Lectures on the History of Philosophy is devoted to ancient philosophy, and throughout his work Hegel frequently frames his positions in relation to the thinkers and movements of antiquity. This volume presents original essays from leading scholars dealing […]
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Hegel’s Metaphysics and the Philosophy of Politics
The renaissance in Hegel scholarship over the past two decades has largely ignored or marginalized the metaphysical dimension of his thought, perhaps most vigorously when considering his social and political philosophy. Many scholars have consistently maintained that Hegel’s political philosophy must be reconstructed without the metaphysical structure that Hegel saw as his crowning philosophical achievement. […]
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The Logic of Hegel’s ‘Logic’: An Introduction
George Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel has seldom been considered a major figure in the history of logic. His two texts on logic, both called The Science of Logic, both written in Hegel’s characteristically dense and obscure language, are often considered more as works of metaphysics than logic. But in this highly readable book, John Burbidge sets out […]
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The Owl and the Rooster: Hegel’s Transformative Political Science
Since 1945, there have been two waves of Anglo-American writing on Hegel’s political thought. The first defended it against works portraying Hegel as an apologist of Prussian reaction and a theorist of totalitarian nationalism. The second presented Hegel as a civic humanist critic of liberalism in the tradition of Rousseau. The first suppressed elements of […]
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The Spirit of Hegel
The Spirit of Hegel consists of a collection of essays covering almost every facet of Hegel’s philosophy. Errol E. Harris emphasizes Hegel’s contemporary relevance, elucidating difficult and controversial questions, and revealing Hegel’s insight into key philosophical problems. Harris presents Hegel’s philosophy as consistent, credible, and prophetic in its anticipation of modern scientific developments. DOWNLOAD: (.pdf)
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Hegel’s Political Philosophy: On the Normative Significance of Method and System
Hegel famously argues that his speculative method is a foundation for claims about socio-political reality within a wider philosophical system. This systematic approach is thought a superior alternative to all other ways of philosophical thinking. Hegel’s method and system have normative significance for understanding everything from ethics to the state. Hegel’s approach has attracted much […]
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Introducing Hegel: A Graphic Guide
Hegel’s influential writings on philosophy, politics, history, and art are parts of a larger systematic whole. They are also among the most difficult in the entire literature of philosophy. Introducing Hegel engages the reader, guiding them through a spectacular system of thought which aimed to make sense of history. DOWNLOAD: (.epub)
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After the Beautiful: Hegel and the Philosophy of Pictorial Modernism
In his Berlin lectures on fine art, Hegel argued that art involves a unique form of aesthetic intelligibility—the expression of a distinct collective self-understanding that develops through historical time. Hegel’s approach to art has been influential in a number of different contexts, but in a twist of historical irony Hegel would die just before the […]
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Hegel’s India: A Reinterpretation with Texts
Presenting all of Hegel’s writings on and about India, this work shows how much effort Hegel expended on what he ultimately characterised merely as fantastic, subjective, wild, dreamy, frenzied, absurd, and repetitive. If Indian art, religion, and philosophy, are so grossly inadequate, what explains his life-long fascination in this unparalleled way? This reinterpretation of Hegel […]
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Plato’s Parmenides Reconsidered
This book offers a very accessible, detailed, and historically-sensitive account of Plato’s Parmenides. Against the prevailing scholarly wisdom, he illustrates conclusively that Parmenides is a satirical dialogue in which Plato attempts to expose the absurd nature of the doctrines and method of his philosophical opponents. Parmenides is very commonly read as a turning point in […]
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The Doctrine of Being in Hegel’s Science of Logic: A Critical Commentary
This book provides an accessible and thorough analysis of “The Doctrine of Being”, the first part of Hegel’s Science of Logic. Though it received much scholarly attention in the past, interpreters of this text have generally refrained from examining it in a sufficiently detailed manner. Through a rigorous and critical reading of Hegel’s speculative arguments, Mehmet […]
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Does History Make Sense?: Hegel on the Historical Shapes of Justice
Hegel’s philosophy of history―which most critics view as a theory of inevitable progress toward modern European civilization―is widely regarded as a failure today. In Does History Make Sense? Terry Pinkard argues that Hegel’s understanding of historical progress is not the kind of teleological or progressivist account that its detractors claim, but is based on a […]
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Shapes of Freedom: Hegel’s Philosophy of World History in Theological Perspective
Peter C. Hodgson explores Hegel’s bold vision of history as the progress of the consciousness of freedom. Following an introductory chapter on the textual sources, the key categories, and the modes of writing history that Hegel distinguishes, Hodgson presents a new interpretation of Hegel’s conception of freedom. DOWNLOAD: (.pdf)
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Hegel on Beauty
While the current philosophical debate surrounding Hegel’s aesthetics focuses heavily on the philosopher’s controversial ‘end of art’ thesis, its participants rarely give attention to Hegel’s ideas on the nature of beauty and its relation to art. This study seeks to remedy this oversight by placing Hegel’s views on beauty front and center. Peters asks us […]
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Irony and Idealism: Rereading Schlegel, Hegel, and Kierkegaard
Irony and Idealism investigates the historical and conceptual structure of the development of a philosophically distinctive conception of irony in early- to mid-nineteenth century European philosophy. The principal figures treated are the romantic thinkers Friedrich Schlegel and Novalis, Hegel, and Kierkegaard. Fred Rush argues that the development of philosophical irony in this historical period is best […]
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Kierkegaard’s Relation to Hegel
This book, written by the eminent Kierkegaard scholar Niels Thulstrup, provides the first comprehensive treatment of this issue. Presented here in translation from the Danish, the work makes available materials that heretofore have been nearly inaccessible to most American scholars and to many Europeans as well. Originally published by Princeton University Press in 1980. DOWNLOAD: […]
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Hegel’s Phenomenology: The Dialectical Justification of Philosophy’s First Principles
Hegel’s philosophy depends on the answer to a fundamental question: why assume that the abstract structures and necessities of pure thought reveal anything at all about the varied and mutable realm of real life experience? In her study of Hegel’s Phenomenology, Ardis Collins examines the way Hegel interprets the Phenomenology of Spirit as an answer […]
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Schiller, Hegel, and Marx: State, Society, and the Aesthetic Ideal of Ancient Greece
Schiller, Hegel, and Marx looked back to ancient Greek culture, viewing it as the historical embodiment of certain ideals central to aesthetic theory. This volume investigates their viewpoints and how they use Greek culture as an ideal model for remaking the modern world, for overcoming alienation and estrangement. All three believed that the modern world […]
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Hegel and Modern Society
This rich study explores the elements of Hegel’s social and political thought that are most relevant to our society today. Combating the prevailing post-World War II stereotype of Hegel as a proto-fascist, Charles Taylor argues that Hegel aimed not to deny the rights of individuality but to synthesise them with the intrinsic good of community […]
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From Concept to Objectivity: Thinking Through Hegel’s Subjective Logic
This book uncovers the nature and authority of conceptual determination by critically thinking through neglected arguments in Hegel’s Science of Logic pivotal for understanding reason and its role in philosophy. Winfield clarifies the logical problems of presuppositionlessness and determinacy that prepare the way for conceiving the concept, examines how universality, particularity, and individuality are determined, […]
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Hegel and the Arts
That aesthetics is central to Hegel’s philosophical enterprise is not widely acknowledged, nor has his significant contribution to the discipline been truly appreciated. Some may be familiar with his theory of tragedy and his (supposed) doctrine of the “end of art,” but many philosophers and writers on art pay little or no attention to his […]
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Hegel, Husserl and the Phenomenology of Historical Worlds
Hegel famously described philosophy as ‘its own time apprehended in thoughts’, reflecting a desire that we increasingly experience, namely, the desire to understand our complex and fast-changing world. But how can we philosophically describe the world we live in? When Hegel attempted his systematic account of the historical world, he needed to conceive of history […]
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Hegel on the Proofs and the Personhood of God: Studies in Hegel’s Logic and Philosophy of Religion
This book integrates materials from several major sources into a sustained exposition of the proofs and the personhood of God, considering Hegel’s critique of Kant, focusing on and replying to Kant’s attack on the theological proofs, offering the first thorough analysis of Hegel’s Lectures on the Proofs of the Existence of God. Hegel’s analysis of […]
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Hegel’s Dialectical Logic
This clear, accessible account of Hegelian logic makes a case for its enormous seductiveness, its surprising presence in the collective consciousness, and the dangers associated therewith. Offering comprehensive coverage of Hegel’s important works, Bencivenga avoids getting bogged down in short-lived scholarly debates to provide a work of permanent significance and usefulness. DOWNLOAD: (.pdf)
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Notes on Dialectics: Hegel, Marx, Lenin
C.L.R. James is one of the leading Marxist interpreters of colonialism and anti-colonial struggle in the 20th century. Famous for his literary and cultural, as well as theoretical, writings, his thinking engaged with a vast range of issues including civil rights, race, class, socialism, cricket, and cultural production. Notes on Dialectics, first published in 1948, […]
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Hegel’s Introduction to the System: Encyclopaedia Phenomenology and Psychology
As an introduction to his own notoriously complex and challenging philosophy, Hegel recommended the sections on phenomenology and psychology from The Philosophy of Spirit, the third part of his Encyclopaedia of the Philosophic Sciences. These offered the best introduction to his philosophic system, whose main parts are Logic, Nature, and Sprit. Hegel’s Introduction to the System finally makes […]
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Hegel’s God: A Counterfeit Double?
Hegel is widely regarded as one of the major thinkers of the modern era, if not the entire tradition of philosophy. Hegel, like many philosophers, took seriously traditional philosophical perplexities about God, but unlike many modern philosophers he claimed to take the specific characteristic of Christianity into account in his philosophizing. This book presents a […]
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Hegel and Metaphysics: On Logic and Ontology in the System
The collective focus of the essays here presented consists of the attempt to overcome the deadlock between metaphysical and non- (or anti-) metaphysical Hegel interpretations. There is no doubt that Hegel rejects traditional and influential forms of metaphysical thought. There is also no doubt that he grounds his philosophical system on a metaphysical theory of […]