Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit has a long-standing reputation as one of the key books in the history of Western philosophy, but many are unsure just what it is about. Even the words in the title are disputed: What sense of “phenomenology” is being used? Is Geist to be rendered “spirit” or “mind”? What does this have to do with Hegel's original title, “The Science of the Experience of Consciousness”? To add to the perplexity, Hegel developed his own technical vocabulary in writing the book, but the jargon he created never caught on and thus there is no common usage for it. As a consequence, both the beginner and the Hegel specialist must make key decisions about to understand many basic terms in the book.This Oxford Guide walks the reader through this canonical text paragraph-by-paragraph using accessible and approachable language, such that both students and instructors--whether they come from philosophy, political theory, literature, or history backgrounds--will benefit.
Terry Pinkard is Professor in the Department of Philosophy at Georgetown University. He has also taught philosophy at Northwestern University, Vanderbilt University, Tübingen University, and Fudan University. His recent books include Power, Practice, and Forms of Life: Sartre's Appropriation of Hegel and Marx (2021), and a new translation of Hegel's The Phenomenology of Spirit (2018)
Prelude 1st chapter: the <"Preface> " 2nd Chapter: the Introduction 3rd Chapter: Sensuous Certainty, Perceiving, Force & the Understanding 4th Chapter: Self-Consciousness and Self-Sufficiency: Mastery and Servitude 5th Chapter: Freedom: Stoicism, Skepticism, Unhappy Consciousness 6th Chapter: Reason: First Part 7th Chapter: Reason, Second Part 8th Chapter: Spirit 9th Chapter: Self-Alienated spirit 10th Chapter: Faith, The Enlightenment and the Truth of the Enlightenment11th Chapter: Absolute Freedom and Terror 12th Chapter: Spirit Certain of Itself: Morality 13th Chapter: Beautiful Souls 14th Chapter: Religion 15th Chapter: Revealed Religion 16th Chapter: Absolute knowing Addendum 1: Further reading Addendum 2: Synopsis of the Chapters
The objective of the work remains relatively modest: it is not a question of seeking to exhaust the meaning(s) of Hegel's work, an impossible task that condemns one to the bad infinity, but rather to propose a path of interpretation, a voice "to facilitate the conversation and not to close it"