Phenomenology of Spirit

Name: Phenomenology of Spirit
Author: G.W.F. Hegel

G.W.F. Hegel

— 1807 —

“

The master-slave dialectic alone justifies this book's existence: consciousness recognizing itself through the other.

The record

Time
An eveningA season
595 pages, about 12 hours: the length of 1.9 typical books on the shelf.
Getting in
Walk right inSteep climb
One reader quit a fifth of the way in, and a reading guide names the Preface as where buyers stall.
What it gives
Plot and actionIdeas to live by
In 11 reviews from critics and book blogs, none credit the plot and 7 credit the ideas or a change in how they live.
One of a kind
Others do thisNothing else does
A critic ranks it with Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason and Heidegger’s Being and Time, the latter on the shelf at 656 pages.

on Hegel’s method
“grasping Hegel requires letting go of the need to grasp Hegel”
a Substack review
on Pinkard’s translation
“Pinkard provides a leaner, fresher and more flowing version”
Meade McCloughan · Marx and Philosophy Review of Books, 2018
on the Preface and Introduction
“The commentary on the Preface and Introduction is especially worthwhile.”
Fred Rush · Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, 2018
on the master-slave dialectic
“foundational to phenomenology, marxism, existentialism, continental feminist work, critical race theory, and psychoanalysis”
a Substack review

on the phrenology section
“a long, tedious section on phrenology”
a book blog
on Hegel’s terminology
“makes up new terminology and starts using them”
a book blog
on Miller’s translation
“occasionally smooths Hegel into an Edwardian English that makes a hard passage sound merely stately”
a book blog
on Absolute Knowing
“the infamous and opaque if not impenetrable rushed and perhaps unfinished final chapter”
a book blog