Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit
One of the most difficult philosophical works ever written is Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit. In the "Introduction" to this work, Hegel attempts to aid his readers by describing the project that he carries out. But like so many things written by Hegel, the "Introduction" itself is formidable and very difficult to understand. In this paper, I attempt to "make sense" of the "Introduction" and, thus, contribute to the understanding of the Phenomenology. To achieve this end, I take the great liberty of comparing philosophers with blind men and Reality with an elephant. I take a series of claims made by Hegel in the "Introduction" and show how they make sense of his project once they are seen in the context of
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Kant has claimed that the history of philosophy, especially Rationalism and Empiricism, is characterized by a lack of awareness of the limitations of the human perspective. For Kant, human knowledge is not some passive activity but rather an active instrument which transforms the world in knowing it. As a result, all of your knowledge is limited to the phenomenal. It is limited in that you have things only in so far as they appear to you. In so characterizing knowledge, Kant, almost like Saxe and the Buddha, wants you to accept the limitations this conception of knowledge implies. It is in accepting your limitations that you can achieve all the benefits that Kant has to offer. It is into this context that Hegel finds himself. Hegel looks back over the history of human thought and finds claims about the nature of ultimate reality. Each thinker claims, like the Blind Men, that they have discovered ultimate reality. As Hegel points out, "For, if cognition is the instrument for getting hold of absolute being, it is obvious that the use of an instrument on a thing certainly does not let it be what it is for itself, but rather sets out to reshape and alter it." (Hegel, Phenomenology, p. 46) While everyone in the past has an appearance or aspect of reality, no one has gone beyond the phenomenal and discovered reality for itself. Further, no one has even reached the point that they recognize the limitations of their own perspective. But if the job of the philosopher means anything at all, Hegel argues that it must not only recognize the phenomenal character of its knowledge, but transcend this phenomenality and achieve truth. For it is only in transcending the phenomenal that you can reach Science or real true knowledge of what exists. "Science, however, must liberate itself from the phenomenality, and it can do so by turning against it." (Hegel, Phenomenology, p. 134) In many ways, the problem of the
In sections 190-193 of Georg Wilhelm Fredrich Hegel’s Phenomenology of Sprit, Hegel looks into the relationship between the lord and the bondsman. In this examination of the relationship, Hegel makes the move to find out what both the lord and bondsman offer to each other in terms of existence and or identity. The formulation that Hegel made in the selected sections is that the bondsman had more to gain in terms of intellectual growth than his lord who becomes intellectually dormant due to the bondsman acting in the likeness of his lord.
Fogelin R. J. (1984) ‘Philosophy and Phenomenological Research’, International Phenomenological Society, Vol. 45, No. 2, pp. 263-271
An important precondition for Hegel's examination of the sensual is his caveat that sense-certainty must not use complex concepts of any kind to express that which it knows. In this sense, Hegel treats sense-certainty as the realm whose truth is expressed as pure being or ISNESS, as opposed to mediated forms that understand ISNESS in a wider context of meaning (Hegel, 91). By insisting on this limitation, Hegel treats sense-certainty as stripped down to bare assertions of sensual experience, allowing the phenomenologist to examine the sensual based solely on what it is capable of showing us on its own. Indeed, it is this litmus test of self-sufficient communication that sets the stage for Hegel to return sensuality to the universal conceptual framework that supports it once it has been seen to fail in its own right.
Kung, Hans. The Incarnation of God: An Introduction to Hegel's Theological Thought As Prolegomena to a Future Christology. T&T Clark, 2001. hard cover.
Schmidt, V. A. 2013. Democracy and legitimacy in the European Union revisited: input, output and ‘throughput’. Political Studies, 61 (1), pp. 2--22.
The European Union stands on the threshold of unparalleled change over the coming years. The next waves of enlargement will be unprecedented in nature and continental in scale. This process has gained so much political momentum that it is now irreversible.
I will argue that it is the narrative frames enclosing The Turn of The Screw that are largely responsible for the reception the book has received. They serve two main purposes; one, to build up an element of suspense and tension before the governess's account actually begins, thus heightening the potential for horror and terror in the text; and two, to cast uncertainty on the reliability of the narrators and hence to increase the ambiguity and scope for interpretation of the text. In fact, I will argue that these frames do not assist the reader in interpreting the action, but are actually used by James to deliberately confound the reader and foster an ambiguous atmosphere.
Hegel is considered one of the most famous German philosopher’s who wrote and taught during the early 1800’s. Hegel thought that humanity and civilizations was inevitable working towards becoming a free society in hope that this idea and process would spread throughout the world. Many of Hegel’s ideas such as his dialect and triad greatly influenced the 19th century. This movement also translated over into the ideas and findings of people in the new world with liberal and free market democracies who represent the final state of Hegel’s progress. Hegel’s ideas can all be seen as part of a progression and broken down and explained through his teachings and theories, the Hegelian triad, and the legacy that Hegel left behind.
Cerutti, F and Lucarelli, S: The Search for a European Identity: Values, Policies and Legitmacy of the European Union, (2008) Routledge
The doctrine of Supremacy of the EU Law has been adopted from the European Court of Justice, in which the doctrine covers all aspects of law in member states. The supremacy is evidently implied in the Treaty on European Union Article 4(3) and Treaty of the functioning of the European Union Article 18 , which emphasises the prohibitions against discrimination. This is then supported by Article 288 TFEU whereby the regulations are binding upon each member state. Furthermore, Article 344 TFEU ensures resolution between member states. This assignment will discuss to what extent the acceptance of the supremacy of the EU law has been problematic in regards to parliamentary sovereignty.
Senior, Nello Susan. "Chapters:4,15." The European Union: Economics, Policies and History. London: McGraw-Hill, 2009. Print.
ABSTRACT: This paper aims to show how the Hegelian philosophy can contribute to the conceptual discussions between the two strains of contemporary ethical-political philosophy. I argue that the Hegelian political theory is of central import to the discussion between communitarians and libertarians, both in the communitarian criticism of the libertarian — mainly in Michael Sandel's criticism of Rawls — and in the Rawlsian project of a society founded in justice as equality. For if the communitarians' theoretical basis is the living of a community in terms of historical-social values, and the individualists' deontological rationality is the basis for the libertarians, Hegel's pointing to a synthetic resolution of the two positions provides a moral foundation for their harmonious coexistence. This does not, however, mean that there is one simple ideological solution that can unite the universal and the particular, the community and the individual, through artificial dialectics, as the critics of Hegelian thought would affirm following the Frankfurt School.
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, Arnold V. Miller, and J. N. Findlay. Phenomenology of Spirit. Oxford [England: Clarendon, 1977. Print.
Because it could be quite complicated to look at the EU model from a point of classical democratic nation-state, it seems to be reasonable to discuss this problem, not by abstract reasoning, but by focusing on a concrete case. European Union is the best case available, which in recent decades has developed into a new type of political system with enormous consequences on democracy and governance in its member states. Despite repeated attempts for major institutional reforms, this system is likely to persist in its basic structures for the future and is unlikely to develop into a federal state or to disintegrate into a classic international organization. The present state of democracy and governance in the EU is therefore worth to be analyzed, as it is not a mere transitory state.
Climate change is one of the major issues surfacing earth over the past century. The earth’s temperature has increased over the years leading to detrimental effects on the economic and life sources of people, especially that of agricultural production and livestock. The Merriam-Webster online dictionary (2014), defined climate change as a change in global climate patterns apparent from the mid late 20th century. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC, (2007) predicts that by 2100 the increase in global average surface temperature may be between 1.8° C and 4.0° C. With increases of 1.5° C to 2.5° C, approximately 20 to 30 percent of plant and animal species are expected to be at risk of extinction. Moreover, the IPCC (2007) purported that climate change has severe consequences for food security in developing countries. There are numerous factors that are solely responsible for this change which are both natural and man-made. Climate change has led to a decrease in quality and quantity of plant produce and livestock because of heat stress, drought and an increase in plant and animal diseases.