/lit/ - Literature

>>16857918

>>16857918
The preface is the hardest part, so don't worry. I would read the sep page on Hegel and maybe Kant then continue.

>>16857933
Oh ok thanks man

>>16857918
First chapter is professional autism. I dropped it

>>16857918
If you're really ateughling with a parricular passage. Greg Sadler on youtube has a series called half hour hegel where he reads phenomenology passage by passage and then discusses what Hegel meant. He's a philosophy professor × 20 years and isn't pretentious and pompous.

>>16857975
Lmao if you're really struggling. With a particular passage. Fuck. Phonefagging is hard.

>>16857975
Thanks for the recommendation

>>16858133
Also I wouldn't feel bad relying on outside sources. Hegel is notorious for being dense and difficult. Philosophers have made entire careers out of interpreting his work.

>>16857918
Do you feel like you have some grasp on the preface? If not make sure you do before moving on. The preface summarizes the work as a whole so it’s worth putting the effort in.

The truth about that book is that even the most well prepared student is still going to struggle, and flatly not understand section of it. Don’t be afraid to refer to commentaries or student guidebooks.

Just this week I heard Todd McGowan (who has written multiple books about Hegel) say that he thinks this book is impossible for a student to get through unaided, no matter how smart they are.

HS Harris has a massive commentary that might be helpful. As >>16857975 says, the Greg Sadler videos are excellent for getting a grip on particular paragraphs you are struggling with.

For general books on Hegel:
Hegel by Charles Taylor, I personally really like this one but I know it exemplifies an interpretation that particularly draws the ire of Slavoj Zizek.

Hegel by Fredrick Beiser is a more recent, and more accessible one volume overview of Hegel’s thought.

If you go searching for commentaries on the Phenomology you will probably come across the one by Robert Brandom, which you should absolutely AVOID. Not because it’s bad, it seems like an excellent work, it’s just that it’s an attempt to read Hegel in terms of his own thought and will likely just confuse the hell out of anybody just trying to understand Hegel
>>16857933
This is completely wrong, the preface is the easiest part, by a big margin.

>>16857922
This is a good book, but far from helpful for a beginner. I wouldn’t approach this until you have a decently strong grasp on Hegel over all.

>>16857918
-Regarding the difficulty of the Preface:
The Preface is the hardest part of the book, Hegel agrees on this too. He just gave you a very condensed summary of his whole philosophy, while also confronting it with thr systems of Schelling and Fichte, all in 30 pages. Hegel himself reassures the reader multiple times, by pointing out that this summary is merely narrative, composed by all the conclusions he reached in this 500 pages book: the arguments for said conclusions are omitted, which is why the Preface is so hard to read.
Technically speaking you're not supposed to get it yet. I must also add that many of the points he states in the Preface will sound completely obscure unless you've read Fichte and Schlling. What the hell is the Spirit? Why is it important that it is a subject? Why is reflection so important for the Absolute Spirit? All these questions will sound trivial to those who have read other German Idealists, and Hegel assumed thst all of his readers would be familiar with those authors.

Basically, don't sweat it, all the odds were stacked against you. The rest od the book is easier than the Preface, although it is still pretty hard.

-Regarding the required background:
Yeah, the Prologomena and Ethics won't cut it. To understand Hegel you need to be very familiar with Kant, Schelling and Fichte. Reading their books will make your reading experience far less frustratung, but if you don't have the time, you should at least get familiar with their more important points by reading secondary literature. Manuals of history of philosophy will help you a lot on this.
If you want to take the first route, you should rigorously study these texts: Kant's three critiques, Reinhold's Essay, Fichte's 1796 Foundation, Schelling's System of Trascendental Philosophy. Kant's first critique is definitely the hardest text among the bunch. If yiu can get through that, all the other ones will be a cakewalk in comparison.

>any advice
lmao the main piece of advice is skip and later return to the preface... the rest is very easy

>>16858952
What about Wissenschaftslehre? I'd even say that it's more difficult that the first Critique.

>>16860368
I don't think so. It is still a challenging book, but if you've gone through the first critique, at least you won't have to guess the terminology from scratch, as it is the case for Kant. Also the 1796 edition (Foundation of yadda yadda) is quite accessible. Furthermore, to understand the role of Fichte in Hegel you only have to read the first chapter, which is like 50 pages long

>>16857918
its a bildungsroman

>>16857918
The preface is famous for that
its only readable after you finish the book, dont worry

>>16857918
You're not supposed to understand it, it's written as a joke

>>16857918
it's a self-help book. its about self-actualizing.