The Phenomenology of Spirit

[Anonymous No.18320846]

I’ve read what you fags told me to read building up to this guy, I read the Greeks, the bible, Aquinas, Augustine, Boehme, the idealists such as Kant, Schelling, Fichte, even Schopenhauer. I also read post-hegel philosophy like Stirner, Nietzsche, Marx, Heidegger, I haven’t went beyond Heidegger chronologically. I also read some of the most difficult fiction out there, I even got through a fair bit of finnegans wake (granted I was lost most of the time but it was entertaining and fun to work it out) but I can’t for the life of me understand what the fuck is going on here bar a few sentences at most, this book is filtering me hard /lit/ I’m really fucking trying, it’s killing my brain

[Anonymous No.18320878]

>>18320846
just read bro, just like following with your finger, lmao

[Anonymous No.18320884]

>>18320846
maybe you "read" the thing you've said you have read. Go back and actually read.

[Anonymous No.18320896]

>>18320846
Keep working on it. POS is a must to understand because it's basic, entry level build up for getting to understand pic related.

[Anonymous No.18320915]

>>18320896
>christcuck shit
lmao

[Anonymous No.18320933]

>>18320896
I found boehme easier, and more understandable, and isn’t he essential for understanding hegel? And not the other way around?

[Anonymous No.18320981]

>>18320878
You read it?

[Anonymous No.18320990]

>>18320933
the fuck does boehme have to do with hegel srs question

[Anonymous No.18321038]

>>18320846
start with Hegel's lectures on the Philosophy of History

[Anonymous No.18321109]

>>18320846
So you get Hearaclitus, Kant, Schelling and Fichte but you don't get PoS? Fucking HOW?

[Anonymous No.18321274]

>>18321109
Maybe because they were clearer in their arguments and PoS is written like shit

[Anonymous No.18321275]

forget everything and read Cioran in chronological order, you'll save yourself a lifetime of bullshit. gayghoul was a dumb bitch

[Anonymous No.18321280]

>>18321274
You are goddamn liar that's what you are

[Anonymous No.18321325]

>>18321280
Am I? Also, I’m not wrong, it’s a poorly written piece of text, I’m sure you can agree

[Anonymous No.18321547]

>>18320846
Have you tried reading secondary literature? Most Hegel seminars have any of these on their syllabus:
>Genesis and Structure of Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit - Jean Hyppolite
>Introduction to the Reading of Hegel - Alexandre Kojève
>Hegel's Dialectic: Five Hermeneutical Studies - Hans-Georg Gadamer
>Subjekt-Objekt - Ernst Bloch
It should also be worth mentioning that Kojève's own interpretation is quite unorthodox, so be a bit careful if you decide to read it.
imo the key to understanding Hegel is understanding the dialectic itself, since Hegel mostly repeats the same formula for every topic he talks about. What he's basically trying to do is to make the same movement the Absolute does within speech, which is to mediate between opposites. So most of the time he'll talk about a positive and immediate state that produces a negation through contradiction, and then a reconciliation between both.
If you still have problems with the Phenomenology, you could also try reading the Science of Logic or the Encyclopedia.
Good luck!

[Anonymous No.18321565]

>>18320990
Boehme was a large influence on Hegel and German idealism in general

[Anonymous No.18321603]

I've been waiting fucking months for my copy of Fichte's Wissenschaftslehre to be sent out. I refuse to believe anyone else is actually reading this shit. I finished Kant's three Critiques but I'm probably going to have to re-study them by the time I get it.

[Anonymous No.18321626]

>>18320846
Reading it now for university, just recently started. I'm currently still in the preface, but finding it manageable so far. I have copy of Hyppolite's commentary (don't remember the name right now) and Harris's "Hegel's Ladder." I'm thinking that, when the book starts to become impossible, I'll pause, read through Hyppolite and sections of Harris, and then reread PoS so far. What part are you at OP where you've begun to stall out.

[Anonymous No.18321664]

>>18321626
>>18320846
Don't start with the preface, it was the last part that was written and presupposes most contents of the book. Hyppolite heavily advised against it, he instead recommended to start with the introduction and finish with the preface.

[Anonymous No.18321686]

Don't feel too bad. Even the English language editor didn't know what the fuck he was reading.

[Anonymous No.18321689]

>>18321626

Hegel is fantastic. Let it animate your soul and don't be too quick to read critics of Hegel.

[Anonymous No.18321744]

>>18321664
Interesting, why did he counsel against it? Sadly I'm almost done with the preface so it might end up advice unheeded...

>>18321689
I'm feeling that, without a doubt. I'd be hesitant to give my broad sense of the book so far, just because I'm young, untutored, and starting out, but there's something mystical or even oneiric there that really speaks to the soul. I'll try my best to avoid the critics.

[Anonymous No.18321898]

>>18321325
Not even worth reading. Hegel's hermetic side shines brightest here, leaving his readers as enlightened as they decide they are. Get a reader for the book, or get two if you want more pov's. Read papers written about the book. PoS is not something you're going to be able to just read.

[Anonymous No.18321920]

>>18321686

[Anonymous No.18322394]

Fuck off faggot.
It you had read Fichte and Schelling (and understood them) then reading Hegel is but one small step further from the giant leaps that came before him.

[Anonymous No.18322843]

>>18320846
I'm in a similar spot actually. I read everything leading up to him and I got to Force and Understanding, then just dropped it. I should come back to it for sure and honestly if I put in the work it can't be that incomprehensible, but man was that section dense.
I think the Critique of Pure Reason was about as difficult to understand, but I was taking a course on it at the time with an expert in the field to answer all my questions and we were reading three separate commentaries simultaneously.

[Anonymous No.18322853]

>>18320846
If this is not a larp or a >le hegel maymay thread, best advice for POS is to get Hegel’s Ladder. It’s commentary that goes paragraph by paragraph, and the only way I’ve ever made sense out of Hegel. It’s very expensive so if you have access to a Uni library you might find it there

[Anonymous No.18322902]

>>18322853
>get Hegel’s Ladder
it's also fucking giant

[Anonymous No.18323228]

>>18321274
PoS is one of the most beautiful books I've read.

[Anonymous No.18323237]

>>18321603
Fichte was a huge jump for me from Kant. That shit is dense, it made me miss Kant.

[Anonymous No.18323309]

>>18320846
>read what you fags told me to read building up to this guy, I read the Greeks, the bible, Aquinas, Augustine, Boehme, the idealists such as Kant, Schelling, Fichte, even Schopenhauer. I also read post-hegel philosophy like Stirner, Nietzsche, Marx, Heidegger, I haven’t went beyond Heidegger chronologically
By read do you mean like looked at a couple pages of one book? PoS is not structurally that much more complex than any of these.

[Anonymous No.18323375]

>>18323237
>Fichte
What should i read by him? Havent read anything by him but i want to.

[Anonymous No.18323807]

>>18323375
Honestly Wissenschaftslehre is enough to get his most important ideas.

[Anonymous No.18323921]

>>18320933
Have you studied Hermeticism and Alchemy? Because without that a good portion will just pass you by. That said, some things in the Signature are cleaner than POS, although still difficult. It's a very layered work.

[Anonymous No.18323924]

>>18321038
This

[Anonymous No.18324293]

>>18320846
100% of you guys read this because you've heard it's the hardest book

[Anonymous No.18324677]

I'm not sure if you truly understood Kant. It probably ties a lot with Hegel because Kant also makes the distinction between Phenomena and Noumenas (which can't be known - outside of the realm of sensibility, thus outside of time and space too).

But Hegel and the other idealists seem to try to apply what Kant started, but with disregard for Kant's warning that it's impossible to perceive metaphysical objects (God, soul, freedom, etc).

In this sense, spirit feels like something that fits Kant's concept of noumenas (so akin to God, soul, etc), and phenomenas (literally... things that are, that happen).

So Phenomenology of Spirit sounds like... the sensibility (or material, characteristic of being perceivable) of spirit (noumena), which is kind of an oxymoron in Kant's perspective since Noumenas cannot be perceived.

Anyway, I didn't read Hegel, but I've read a bit of Kant and I know Hegel also read Kant so it feels like the title is heavily influenced by Kant's work.

[Anonymous No.18324995]

>>18320990
the question you should be asking is what the fuck DOESN'T Boehme have to do with Hegel

[Anonymous No.18325070]

>>18324677
Phenomenology in this case is just the observation of phenomena as it is, without any kind of intervention, completely independent object from observer; or even more precisely, the observation of the development of ideas.
Spirit is the collective nature of mankind (very VERY simplified).
So PoS refers to observation of ideas developing in the form of communal condition.

[Anonymous No.18325124]

>>18325070

I know what phenomenology is, I just mean that this "Spirit" in the title of the work refers to something Kant coins as "noumena", but Hegel, contrary to Kant, takes this "noumena" (this collective spirit) and places it in the realm of sensibility, of perception.

So in a sense, Hegel might want to imply by the title "Phenomenology of Spirit" the "Observation (perception in the sensible world) of the Spirit (understood as noumena - something which by Kant's definition can't be perceived, but probably Hegel wanting to make a point that in fact a noumena can be perceived.

At least this take sounds very plausible.

[Anonymous No.18325132]

Is there a good intro to Hegel book, or do you have to just read PoS?

[Anonymous No.18325151]

>>18325124

Forgot to add that this take would fit with the fact that Kant added a limit to theoretical knowledge since "noumenas" are an inherent limit of knowledge, he basically set the boundary between metaphysics and physics, wanting to show that we can't know anything with certainty when speaking about objects of metaphysics, like God (this being his epistemologial position). The metaphysical thinkers before him all thought that reality can be known, including metahphysics, with certainty through rationality.

So maybe Hegel's PoS is a way for him to disagree with Kant too on this stance, that the metaphysical can actually be "known".

[Anonymous No.18325179]

>>18325151
Geist is not noumena. Hegel certainly doesn't make the case that noumena can be perceived. To the contrary he get's rid of it entirely.

[Anonymous No.18325214]

>>18325179

I see. As I said, I didn't read Hegel (yet, I will eventually), but Geist sounds terribly like something from the suprasensible realm, something outside of physical existence.

[Anonymous No.18325443]

"The observation of abstraction"

[Anonymous No.18325460]

>>18324293
Oh definitely, that’s why OP probably autistically went through everything to get there

[Anonymous No.18325474]

>>18325132
Though the PoS is probably the most difficult Hegel, it’s also the most discussed and it helps reading that first to be able to get a gripe on his other works, which are more accessible (but only after you’ve read PoS)

[Anonymous No.18325550]

>>18325132

Read his earlier works. Read what his contemporaries were writing. Read their earlier works. Think like a historian. Think like a detective. Figure it out. Etc. Fuck.

[Anonymous No.18325581]

>>18323807
Thanks. I cant find it on z lib tho. Know any fichte books on there to recommend?

[Anonymous No.18325598]

if abstraction means removing specific, contingent extrinsic attributes of a thing to get at the true, intrinsic unchanging aspect of a thing, the "nature" or "character" of the thing, then clearly hegel's use of the term "spirit" in the context of the following passage is almost indistinguishable from the process of abstraction.

>With Abraham, the true progenitor of the Jews, the history of this people begins, i.e., his spirit is the unity, the soul, regulating the entire fate of his posterity. This spirit appears in a difference guise after every one of its battles against different forces of after becoming sullied by adopting an alien nature as a result of succumbing to might or seduction. Thus it appears in a different form either as arms and conflict or else as submission to the fetters of the stronger; this latter form is called “fate.”

From this we can see that the terms "abstraction," "spirit," "nature," and, "character" all more or less mean the same thing.

[Anonymous No.18325606]

>>18325581
Try Science of Knowledge. Everybody just calls it Wissenschaftslehre.

[Anonymous No.18325686]

Everyone wants to read Phenomenology of Spirit but ain't nobody wanna do start by learning Term Logic.

[Anonymous No.18325809]

>>18325606
Cool, just found a good copy. Its not too long either, which was unexpected.. Im excited to start. Thanks anon!