eBook downloads, eBook resources & eBook authors
Focusing on the Science of Logic , this wide-ranging and innovative reading exposes the force as well as the limit of Hegel's philosophy. Drawing on Hegel's early account of tragic conflicts, De Boer brings into play a form of negativity that challenges the optimism inherent in modernity and Hegelian dialectics alike.
This book is a complete translation of Marx's critical commentary on paragraphs 261-313 of Hegel's major work in political theory. In this text Marx subjects Hegel's doctrine on the internal constitution of the state to a lengthy analysis. It was Marx's first attempt to expose and criticize Hegel's philosophy in general and his political philosophy in particular. It also represents his early efforts to criticize existing political institutions and to clarify the relations between the political and economic aspects of society. The Critique provides textual evidence in support of the argument that Marx's early writings do not exhibit radically different doctrinal principles and theoretical and practical concerns from his later work. This edition also includes a translation of the introduction Marx wrote for his proposed revised version of the Critique which he never completed. In a substantial introduction, Professor O'Malley provides valuable information on Marx's intellectual development.
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 that Hegel's rich analyses of Buddhism, Hinduism, Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Egyptian and Greek polytheism, and the Roman religion are not simply irrelevant historical material, as is often thought. Instead, they play a central role in Hegel's argument for what he regards as the truth of Christianity. Hegel believes that the different conceptions of the gods in the world religions are reflections of individual peoples at specific periods in history. These conceptions might at first glance appear random and chaotic, but there is, Hegel claims, a discernible logic in them. Simultaneously, a theory of mythology, history, and philosophical anthropology, Hegel's account of the world religions goes far beyond the field of philosophy of religion. The controversial issues surrounding his treatment of the non-European religions are still very much with us today and make his account of religion an issue of continued topicality in the academic landscape of the twenty-first century.
The scope of this study is both ambitious and modest. One of its ambitions is to reintegrate Hegel's theory of knowledge into main stream epist~ology. Hegel's views were formed in consideration of Classical Skepticism and Modern epistemology, and he frequently presupposes great familiarity with other views and the difficulties they face. Setting Hegel's discussion in the context of both traditional and contemporary epistemology is therefore necessary for correctly interpreting his issues, arguments, and views. Accordingly, this is an issues-oriented study. I analyze Hegel's problematic and method by placing them in the context of Sextus Empiricus, Descartes, Kant, Carnap, and William Alston. I discuss Carnap, rather than a Modern empiricist such as Locke or Hume, for several reasons. One is that Hegel himself refutes a fundamental presupposition of Modern empiricism, the doctrine of "knowledge by acquaintance," in the first chapter of the Phenomenology, a chapter that cannot be reconstructed within the bounds of this study.
GEORG WILHELM FRIEDRICH HEGEL (1770-1831) THE PLACE OF HEGEL IN THE HIS TOR Y OF PHILOSOPHY In order to gain a proper perspective of Hegel's place in the history of philo sophy, it might be useful to focus on one key concept which has evolved significantly in meaning, from the time of Aristotle to Hegel. I am speaking of the philosophical concept of the "category. " In Aristotle's system, there were ten categories (or "predicaments") of reality or being. These included substantiality, time, place, quantity, quality, and other aspects of knowable beings. The most notable thing about these categories is that they all have to do with what we would call "objective" realities. That is, none of them purport to describe subjective or mental states or conditions. In modern philosophy (i. e. , philosophy since the time of Descartes), there was a swing of the pendulum in the opposite direction, from objectivity to subjectivity - culminating in the twelve new "categories" of Kant. All of Kant's categories were subjective ways oflooking at reality: We can organize objective phenomena into universal unities; therefore the first Kantian cate gory is "unity. " We can separate objective phenomena into particular divi sions; therefore the second category is "plurality. " And so forth. With Hegel, the modern trend to subjectivism is arrested, and we have, not surprisingly, a new type of "category" - the category of the unity of thought and being, of self and other, of subject and object.
On Mechanism in Hegel's Social and Political Philosophy examines the role of the concept of mechanism in Hegel’s thinking about political and social institutions. It counters as overly simplistic the notion that Hegel has an ‘organic concept of society’. It examines the thought of Hegel’s peers and predecessors who critique modern political intuitions as ‘machine-like’, focusing on J.G. Herder, Friedrich Schlegel and Novalis. From here it examines the early writings of Hegel, in which Hegel makes a break with the Romantic way of thinking about ethical community. Ross argues that in this period, Hegel devises a new way of thinking about the integration of mechanistic and organic features within an organizational whole. This allows Hegel to offer an innovative theory of modern civil society as a component in ethical life. The second half of the book examines how Hegel develops this thought in his later works. It offers an in depth commentary on the chapter on mechanism in the Science of Logic, and it demonstrates the role of these thoughts in Hegel’s Philosophy of Right. On Mechanism in Hegel's Social and Political Philosophy offers a critical response to debates over communitarianism by arguing against one of the central figures used by scholars to associate Hegel with communitarian thought, namely the notion that society is organic. In addition, it argues that Hegel political theory is deeply informed by his formal ontology, as developed in the Science of Logic.
