The Phenomenology of Spirit

[Anonymous No.18376110]

Do you think people exaggerate the difficulty of this book? It seems like it would be difficult for people without any knowledge in philosophy let alone idealism, but he wrote this as a (not greatly written) introductory book for laymen. Compared to many of his successors and even some of his predecessors it’s not mind numbingly hard

[Anonymous No.18376119]

[Anonymous No.18376138]

>>18376119
Yes

[Anonymous No.18376918]

>>18376110
>but he wrote this as a (not greatly written) introductory book for laymen
Lolnope, you might be confusing it with the Encyclopedia (which is an extremely difficult text in its own way).
First of all, it's not written for the laymen. If you're not VERY familiar with Schelling's philosophy (including his Naturalphilosophie), large swathes of the book will simply be unintelligible. The same applies to other authors, the main ones would be Kant, Fichte, Jacobi, and other German romantics.
And even then, even eith all this context, much of his reasoning remains obscure unless you've gone through some of the Science of Logic. I advise you to check the section of the PhG reception in Pinkard's biography of Hegel. In it it is shown that not even the greatest intellectuals of Hegel's generation could parse anything out of that book. Hell, most of his reviewers thought that the PhG was a Schellingian text (which means that even the most educated could not reach even a basic understanding of that book)

Secondly, it is true that at first he thought that this could be an introduction to his system (and again, this does not mean that it is an introductory text for laymen), but he quickly changed his mind on the matter. As soon as he started teaching his own philosophy, he discovered that only the sections up to the end of Self-Consciousness were required as an introduction, and that after those one could immediately jump to the Science of Logic. Moreover, he never used the PhG itself for his lectures, and instead he always relied on the Phenomenology sections in the Encyclopedia, which were considerably shorter and easier.
>Compared to many of his successors and even some of his predecessors it’s not mind numbingly hard
Kant, Fichte and Schelling are a cakewalk compared to Hegel. Maybe Aristotle's Metaphysics is comparable to the PhG in terms of difficulty, but frankly I doubt it

[Anonymous No.18377781]

>>18376119
Correct

[Anonymous No.18377853]

>>18376110
Why does my edition of the phenomenology smell like pee?
also,
>he wrote this as a (not greatly written) introductory book for laymen
Are you stupid?

[Anonymous No.18377900]

>>18376110
It wasn't supposed to be an easily readable summary. It was also written on a rushed timeline with no editing.

Part of the difficulty is the rushed writing which led to unclear sentences. Clauses pile up and are ambiguous, making it difficult the read from purely a grammatical perspective.

It's also building on a lot of complex ideas and assumes a background in the debates of the time.

[Anonymous No.18377994]

I read it, and I thought the difficulty was exaggerated. It certainly wasn't easy, but it is surprisingly lucid.

[Anonymous No.18378192]

>>18376110
>Do you think people exaggerate the difficulty of this book?
Yeah

[Anonymous No.18379867]

>>18376110
doesn't help that the most popular translation is subpar