Talk:Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Hegel's racism

So his racism is well documented, why is there nothing about it in the article? --LH7605 (talk) 00:19, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

The academic article you cited concedes his racism wasn't unique in historical context ("The source of his racism can be traced to the general ideology of the nineteenth century") and that passages from his works are "rather ambivalent" about race when viewed in isolation (only revealing themselves as racist when studied holistically). That said, if someone feels confident making a case that his racism was contextually unique and/or has a particular & fundamental bearing on his philosophy, I'd say go for it. Deadseaweed (talk) 19:45, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

If someone wants to add this to the Legacy section, I would recommend chapter 4 of Allegra de Laurentiis's 2021 Hegel's Anthropology as a strong contender for the most scholarly and objective treatment of the issue in that text. That said, however, think the only real reason to include this would be to push back against hyperbolic claims sometimes leveled against Hegel by scholars in other fields. (The only people who actually read Hegel's Anthropology are serious enough not to be taken in.)

If such a subsection could also be extended to treat Hegel's East-to-West historical narratives, esp. in the Phi World History, but also Phi Art and Phi Religion, that would make it much more valuable. This aspect of Hegel's work is problematic in a way that I think might have philosophical implications that his (at least seemingly) one-off racist comments in the Anthropology probably do not. PatrickJWelsh (talk) 14:20, 15 August 2022 (UTC)

My earlier dismissal of racist claims in the Anthropology as "one-off" now reads to me as embarrassingly glib. There is a middle ground between giving Hegel a total pass and passing categorical judgment upon him by today's standards. I will try to put together a short section on this.

With respect to the integrity and success of his philosophical enterprise, however, I continue to believe that the racist/imperialist, East-to-West structure common to his Berlin lectures is more significant than his more generalized racist attitudes – which, although he (like Kant, in his lectures on anthropology) was in a position to overcome, failed to do so – that were entirely typical of his time.

I do not know this part of his philosophy very well, however, and do not have secondary sources immediately at hand. Anyone with recommendations of good sources on racism/imperialism in Hegel's philosophical histories, if you do not wish to simply edit directly, please do offer your suggestions here.

Thanks— PatrickJWelsh (talk) 21:59, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

I finally got around to adding mention of Hegel's racist comments. It is, however, just a mention – see the section on subjective spirit – and would benefit from additional sources and discussion.

There will need to be more on colonialism (which, as I understand it, depends upon racist ideology) whenever I or someone else (please step up!) gets around to adding a section on Hegel's philosophy of history. Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 00:59, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

There is now mention of the Euro-centrism of Hegel's philosophy of history.

For good measure, I also added a short paragraph clarifying his position on slavery. Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 16:56, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

Further reading

Per suggestion of GA review editor, I have standardized the format of these and edited the list to (i) be more reflective of sources relied upon in the article and (ii) to exclude outdated references or those not likely to be useful to an introductory audience. I have, however, retained reference to some good volumes not currently used as references in this article. (For if these are not allowed, there truly is no justification for this section to exist.)

My own view, for what it is worth, is that we should simply delete this section entirely. Any list will be arbitrary and contentious. Just look at the Chitty bibliography linked at the bottom <https://users.sussex.ac.uk/~sefd0/bib/hegel.htm>. (And there's some good stuff he has so far missed!) Plus, does anyone actually rely on this for reading suggestions?

By all means, however, do restore your favorite author if I have axed your favorite Hegel source. Just please keep the format consistent. PatrickJWelsh (talk) 15:16, 1 September 2022 (UTC)

I am deleting this section. Per WP:Further_reading, it is optional and "many good articles, and more than half of all featured articles, omit it. As of 2016, this section was present in fewer than 3 percent of Wikipedia's articles."

My primary reasons are first, as stated above, every possible list will be contentious, and, second, stuff that clearly does not belong will be added so long as there is such a list. I have been intermittently checking in on this page for several years now, and I can attest that really bizarre stuff shows up that is in no way useful to the general reader. So let's just sidestep altogether pointless debates about what does and does not merit inclusion.

Anyone who wants to find an introductory volume on Hegel's philosophy would be better served by searching Amazon and perusing user reviews (or other such equivalent procedure).

(The External links, by contrast, I think are useful and should continue to be curated and maintained.) Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 18:31, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

Arnold V. Miller translator of Hegel

In 1969, Oxford University Press published Arnold V. Miller's translation of Hegel's Science of Logic. In 1977, OUP published Arold V. Miller's translation of Hegel's Phenomenology, with the Findlay Forward and commentary in 1977. But who was translator A. V. Miller? Here is an obituary of Arnold V. Miller, supplied by the Hegel Society of Great Britain:

BULLETIN OF THE HEGEL SOCIETY OF GREAT BRITAIN

Obituary • ARNOLD VINCENT MILLER A V Miller was a true scholar. He combined an awesome intellect with an equally awesome modesty, gentleness, humility and humour. He was one of the last Victorians, being 92 when he died and his life spanned most of this century. By virtue of circumstance and his own search for truth through Hegelian philosophy, his life makes a fascinating chronicle of one man's journey through a century of almost unimaginable change in the outer world and the triumph of his own intellectual and spiritual quest.

He was born in 1899, the fourth child in four years, to a poor, but devout, Water Board Inspector and his wife and reared in the rigid doctrines of the Strict and Particular Baptists and the respectable working class. His intelligence showed itself early on by winning him a scholarship to Hilldrop Road County Secondary School in North London, whence he matriculated at sixteen. He was already outgrowing the dogma of the Baptist and began his philosophical quest by flirting with Theosophy before being called up to the Rifle Brigade in March 1917. After a year's training he arrived in the trenches of N E France in March 1918. His experience of trench warfare must be one of the shortest in history. No sooner had Arnold dug his hole on the first morning in action than Jerry appeared out of the mist and promptly made him a prisoner of war. Because of his knowledge of German and French he was moved to a German military hospital at Charleville - Mezieres where he spent the rest of the war as a theatre orderly. There, he experienced all the horrors of a World War One operating theatre, as well as malnutrition, dysentery and lice. Somehow, amongst the degradation and carnage, a close-knit cosmopolitan community of priests, nuns, doctors, nurses, captors and captives sustained and supported each other through their common humanity and their search for mutual understanding.

What a breeding ground for philosophy that must have been. Following his demobilisation and fruitless attempts to find work, Arnold volunteered to go to Vienna with the Quakers and distribute food to the starving children. He travelled on the first post-war Orient Express to cross war-torn Europe and arrived in Vienna in 1920. It was there that he developed communist leanings, had a great deal of fun, and with his dolichocephalic head, Roman nose, shock of wild, wavy red hair, laid back manner and insatiable appetite for debating the eternal verities, he anticipated the hippie life by forty years. Back in London, in the 20s, and still unemployed, he was drawn irresistibly to the soap boxes of Hyde Park Corner. Turned out of the Park at midnight, he and a fellow soap box orator would spend the rest of the night pacing the miles, back and forth across London between their respective homes in Chiswick and Islington - still in earnest debate. It was this same Chiswick chemist who directed Arnold to Whiteway, a small commune on the Cotswolds, where he met Francis Sedlak, a Czech refugee and Hegelian philosopher, whose disciple and friend he became. This meeting marked the crossroads in his life. By the late Twenties his outer life had become conventional and his remarkable inner journey into Philosophy had begun. He became a civil servant, married his beloved Francesca and eventually sired two daughters during World War Two. In Hegel he had finally identified his Pole Star and from that moment he left the external world to take care of itself and followed Hegel with unfaltering steps. World War Two diverted his attention only temporarily with the nightmare of commuting to London by day, air raid warden duty by night, and rearing two babies in an air raid shelter. With the war over he spent most evenings after work steeping himself in Hegel. Alone and completely self taught, untutored by any formal academic structure, he struggled to grasp Hegel's great dialectic "through which the individual soul finds itself on a new elevation and with new powers".

His by now considerable knowledge of German soon enabled him to realise that the only English translations of Hegel were but vapid shadows of the original. They were frequently inaccurate and a travesty of the Master's work. Tentatively, he began to experiment with his own translations, the better to test his understanding and make good the deficiencies. Meanwhile, mainstream philosophy was travelling another road - and in the opposite direction. Neo-Hegelianism had long since been relegated to some dusty cupboard of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries with the publication in 1936 of Language Truth and Logic. By the 1940s Logical positivism was the order of the day and philosophy identified itself almost exclusively with mathematics and the natural sciences. There is nothing so sweet to those seeking to establish an ideology as a common enemy, and so Hegel became an anathema and was castigated as the evil genius behind totalitarian continental philosophy. Arnold's unorthodox Hegelian voice had yet to be heard but there was to be one lone voice which would herald him, from within the establishment pale, and without whom Arnold's voice would never have been heard. That voice belonged to John Findlay, Professor of Philosophy at London University. In 1958 he published Hegel - a Re-examination and the academic world sat up and took notice. Findlay approached Hegel neither as Communist, Theologian nor Natural Scientist, but as a Phenomenologist. While Logical positivism held sway, those like Findlay, who specialised in Hegel, were themselves in a philosophical backwater. Findlay was no exception, but his book marked a watershed and the tide imperceptibly turned. Arnold suspected that in Findlay he might find, if not a kindred spirit, a sympathetic colleague, as proved to be the case. In the late 1950s, shortly before his retirement, he submitted samples of his translation to Findlay, who immediately recognised the quality of his scholarship and invited him to an introductory meeting. The years of isolation were over. With Findlay's backing, the longer Logic was published in 1969 to unanimous international acclaim. He spent the next 17 years translating and publishing most of Hegel's major works, six volumes in all, the Logic alone comprising more than 800 pages. He attended Hegelian conferences and seminars both in the UK and the US up until six months before his death when he was rising 92. Undaunted by his lack of formal education, he tackled Higher Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry and the Greek Philosophers. He seemed to inhabit Hegel's mind as though it were his own and the very fabric of his being. A V Miller brought Hegel to the English speaking world and made his work available to anyone who could read and had the tenacity to stretch the mind and spirit to a formidable level. Hegel is no easy taskmaster. Of course, the longer Logic and the Phenomenology are of special interest to Hegelians because they are seen to contain his basic methodology. Arnold, however, considered the Logic alone to be Hegel's masterpiece and the Phenomenology an optional extra, to the point where he resisted for several years all demands to translate it. For him, the specialised fields of the Philosophy of Nature and the Philosophy of the Subjective Spirit were of overriding importance and led him to the very heart and essence of Hegel, despite the fact that these long and complicated works were ignored by more orthodox Hegelians. But it was Frances, on the home front, ever Arnold's bridge to the external world, who issued the ultimate spiritual challenge. Faced with rearing two daughters in the post World War Two era, she demanded to know the relevance of Hegel to the spiritual development of their children. Arnold reflected and found Hegel and Christianity to be essentially sympathetic. In 1946 he was baptised, along with Ann and Mary, and almost immediately confirmed into the Church of England. Church membership became a focus of family life and Arnold regularly read the lesson, doing more than a little justice to the effortless prose and understanding of the Authorised Version of the Bible.

Philosophy to Arnold was no mere intellectual exercise but a living, breathing organism. He brought this unshakeable conviction, alongside his astounding scholarship, into the halls of Academia. By translating in his beautiful, lucid manner he presented Hegelians with a challenge in informed, modem English. His quiet presence, modesty and disarming, unaffected humour, justly earned him the love and respect of all who knew him and he became something of a legend in his lifetime. The experiences of a World War One German military hospital scarred him for life. As children we grew up with the honor stories of that time. But, because he told of unspeakable things, as though they were just everyday events and tacitly disclaimed the impact that they surely must have had, we, too, accepted the starvation, dysentery, crude amputations, limbs mixed up in coffins, blood, butchery and pain as just something that had happened. He was not in a hospital again until his 89th year, and it was only then that he relived those earlier experiences, with all the anguish of an 18 year old boy, utterly unequipped for such indecencies and with tears running unchecked down his cheeks. The tears flowed down our cheeks too and we realised, at last, that he like so many, had carried those wounds to the heart and the spirit for more than 70 years. It was perhaps why, when not engrossed in Hegel, he turned so often to laughter and light entertainment, to anything that was comfortable and not disturbing. In retrospect, much of his life may well have been the flight from too much pain, endured too young; unhealed, because it was never acknowledged or validated. Perhaps, too, it was why he was so passionately committed to mind and spirit. What men do is too terrible to contemplate. Arnold was wise, too, in his choice of partner, for his Frances supplied all the practical applications of intelligence which he so obstinately abjured. Frances and Arnold, or "Frarnold" as they were affectionately known, were a family firm. He relied on her totally to pay the bills and provide all his creature comforts and the means of survival. Without "Frarnold" there would have been no A V Miller, Hegelian philosopher and translator. As father and friend, he was a rare gift. But, he, wise man though he was, was blessed with his fair share of human folly. He could never resist an invitation to play, or discourse, or tell stories, but he could be difficult to live with. His exasperating refusal to address the molehills of day to day living could effectively offset the unswerving vision of the Mountains of Truth, Reason and Wisdom where his towering intellect and humility had their proper home. He was no mean pianist and could harmonise any tune by ear and the old music hall songs like "Nellie Dean" and "Lily of Laguna" were an integral part of life with the Millers. He was a genial man, entertaining and a natural wit. The family home was always open to an ever-increasing circle of friends. Nearly a hundred people gathered to celebrate his eightieth and then his ninetieth birthday.

It was easy to think that he might delay the act of "perfect restoration" to his divine nature for ever. But the last two years witnessed a gradual but progressive weariness. He had only one ambition left; to write his own major work. It was not to be. His genius lay in translating and illuminating the work of his master, Hegel. Arnold was surely the man of whom it was written: Before the living spirit which indwells a philosophy can be revealed, it must be brought to birth by a kindred spirit. It was both a joy and a grief to see Arnold receive the acclaim of the Hegelian world with such naive and delighted surprise. He was utterly without hubris or the intellectual arrogance that is so often endemic to academic life. Perhaps his was, after all, the better part, spared the petty jealousies of the intellectual elite - for he remained outside the system to the end. The acclaim was never substantiated or officially recognised by the accolade of an honorary degree. No university ever welcomed him into its fold. It never occurred to him that they should - he was blissfully unaware of such worldly trappings. But to his family and friends and doubtless to many students, lecturers and professors who owe him so much, a tribute to that mammoth contribution of solid and inspired scholarship should have been made. His death was unhurried, a joyous celebration and affirmation of a life complete. We who knew him loved him and we honour his greatness - the man and his work. -- Mary Lettington Arnold Vincent Miller, Hegelian philosopher and translator, born London 10 January 1899, published translations of Hegel: Science of Logic 1969, Philosophy of Nature, 1970, Philosophy of Mind 1971, Phenomenology of Spirit, 1977, Introduction to Lectures of History of Philosophy 1985, (coUab). Philosophic Propedeutic 1986. Married 1933 Frances Reeve, (two daughters), died Cirencester 19 March 1991. 2601:280:CA80:8970:F964:E72:CE4F:AC81 (talk) 10:27, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

I think the Owl also ran an obit that I might be able to find for you if you plan to create a page for him, which would be welcome. Otherwise I'm not sure why you're posting this here more than 30 years after his death. Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 02:44, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

new top-level section on history

Without intending to when I sat down to write this, I combined Hegel's doctrine of the world history of objective spirit with his account of the history of philosophy. A cleaner version would separate these with sub-heads, but I think what I added is a good starting point that fills a gap in this article's coverage. There's additional stuff I hope to add. But this seemed good enough to publish for the inspection of other editors.

Brief mention or discussion of the historical parts of the philosophies of art and religion should probably also be added to those sections. This is not, in my view, Hegel at his best, but I can probably pull something together. Anyone who really wants to develop this part of Hegel's philosophy should probably do so at the child-pages for those lecture series. Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 02:36, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

the lead

I've just updated the lead, removing some bland historical facts and replacing them with a more substantial report on Hegel's central philosophical claims.

Did I get anything wrong? What is still missing?

I would like a tidy remark defining his idealism. Possibly also something on his anti-dualism. Everything in the lead, however, must be substantiated by the body of the article, and I don't feel we've nailed these topics quite yet. Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 21:14, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

It looks great- Hegel is a hard figure to write a lead for but this is fairly concise. For such an influential figure, we've got a good list of genres of study attached to him, but maybe a few lines on the well known cultural inheritors of Hegel would be appropriate, really any of the subtopics in Criticism and Legacy. This could go at the end of the first paragraph, and would be good for readers who aren't as versed in philosophy to understand why and how Hegel influenced philosophy (ie, through Left/Right Hegelianism, Marx, Thesis–antithesis–synthesis even though its a misunderstanding, etc).

I think you're right that a bit more on his core philosophy would be great and that also the article should be expanded to contribute in this area. I might add a brief summary of the famous Master-Slave dialectic in PoS, and use that a springboard for anti-dualism. MrSirGuyFriendBuddyOlPal (talk) 17:11, 20 November 2022 (UTC)

Hi @MrSirGuyFriendBuddyOlPal, thanks for weighing in!

To your points:

1) I agree with you in principle about some mention of his tremendous legacy. The problem is that, in practice, this has proven fraught. Everyone wants to add their favorite Hegel-quip by their favorite author and so the lead ends up a weird unrepresentative mess. But maybe something more along the lines of this:

"Hegel's thought continues to exercise an enormous influence – both positive and negative, direct and indirect – across a wide variety of traditions in Western philosophy."

It's bland, but maybe better than nothing. (And we are, after all, supposed to be aspiring to the prose of an encyclopedia...) If at a later day someone produces a more substantive paragraph, we can just make another change.

It would also be a good idea, whether or not we edit the lead, to add a claim to this effect with supporting citations (won't be hard to find!) to the opening/lead of the Criticism and Legacy section.

2) The lord-bondsman dialectic is famous enough to merit inclusion in the PhS section. I left it out because I think its importance is overstated and because one's interpretation is inevitably controversial, leading to editing wars and pointless argument. See, e.g., my slightly pedantic endnote to the first section in the Reception in France section.

Also, I was concerned that the main Hegel article not fall into the task of summarizing of the entire Phenomenology of Spirit, which has its own page—as does the lord-bondsman dialectic.

Particularly though if you think you can link up a discussion of this dialectic to larger themes or characteristics of Hegel's philosophy, such as anti-dualism, do by all means take a go. If I think there are issues with your reading, we can just talk it out here.

Cheers, and thanks for your interest in the article —

Patrick Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 21:42, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

I completed (1). I didn't see an obvious place to make edit (2), but perhaps I will at a later date if no one else does first. Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 16:58, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

I agree that Hegel is a difficult figure in practice to write summaries for. I think your line for 1) is succinct.

If/when I get more time I will add the master-slave dialectic, and add it to PoS section. You're right there are numerous pages that already cover it, but I feel its a relatively famous section of PoS that is part of Hegel's legacy (I am sure I can find a source that attests to its fame), and just like the PoS has the main article linked to it, I will link to lord-bondsman dialectic. If/when I add something I assure you it will be brief.

I want to thank you too for the incredible work to this article. I know you have been quite active towards it in the past little while and it has paid off. MrSirGuyFriendBuddyOlPal (talk) 18:51, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

You're most welcome for the work. The quality of philosophy entries in general is a huge problem on Wikipedia. With Hegel I at least knew the content already, and I've enjoyed much of the time spent organizing and presenting it in what I hope is accessible language.

I do agree with your contention about the importance of the lord-bondsman dialectic meriting mention in the section on the PhS. If I put something up before you do, don't think I'm trying to preempt you from saying what you think should be included. Just edit away!

Cheers— Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 16:31, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

New lecture notes found

4,000 pages of notes on Hegel's lectures in 1816-18, thought to be by Friedrich Wilhelm Canové, have been found and are to be published: Tor, Sara (29 November 2022). "Manuscript treasure trove may offer fresh understanding of Hegel". The Guardian. Retrieved 29 November 2022. Hegel expert please add to the article. Errantios (talk) 10:03, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

I agree this is exciting news, but I'm not convinced it belongs in an encyclopedia article. For point of comparison, see this catalog of Hegel's lecture transcripts and other miscellaneous writings already published in critical editions, practically none of which are mentioned in the article: https://meiner.de/editionen-werkausgaben-ausserhalb-der-phil-bibl/g-w-f-hegel-vorlesungen-ausgew-nachschriften-u-manuskripte.html?limit=all.

If you are not persuaded this consideration, where in the article do you think it might be appropriate to include this item?

Cheers— Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 16:25, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

Is it the same person who keeps adding this material? If so, please make your case for inclusion. I do not see how it is of interest to anyone other than specialists, who, in any case, are already aware and do not consult Wikipedia.

Also, this article already links out to a child article on the Aesthetics, which contains the news item. Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 15:54, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

"Pop culture" sub-section

Although it seems weird to include a section like this in an encyclopedia, this is after all an Internet encyclopedia and lots of other articles have such sections. Plus, hey!—they can be fun.

Right now, though, there does not seem to be enough material to warrant inclusion in the article. What is there is well-sourced and clearly a good-faith contribution, but nevertheless consists only of two quite minor references in rather obscure cultural artifacts.

I propose pulling it out of the article, but preserving here on the Talk page to be potentially restored at such a time as someone compiles a more substantial catalog of references to Hegel in better-known pop cultural sources. Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 22:25, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

As per above:

=== Pop culture ===

Further information: Aufheben (album) and Hegelian Dialectic (The Book of Revelation)

Hegel has been referenced in visual media of early 21st-century popular culture. In the video game Event 0 is he quoted in graffiti on an abandoned, luxurious spaceship, and some possible plot lines in which the ship's artificial intelligence evolves to become an equal partner with the player have been bruited as illustrating dialectical development. (The game itself uses an apparently emergent AI engine.) The second volume of the trade paperback graphic novel Injection by Warren Ellis, Declan Shalvey, and Jordie Bellaire has two panels referencing Hegel: the Sherlock Holmes character Headman contemplates his grave in a flashback, and on the next page quotes him from a book he is holding: "Education is the art of making man ethical." Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 02:02, 2 March 2023 (UTC)

References

Contradictory info

The biography section states that The Difference Between Fichte's and Schelling's System of Philosophy is Hegel's first book. However the philosophy section states that The Phenomenology of Spirit is the first one. What's going on here? Billcipher123 (talk) 15:00, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

Great catch Billcipher123. This is a Hegelian article on Hegel, where the first book is also the second book, because the identity of the inner vs the outer, as compared to in the extreme, becomes the penultimate contrast of its other. To simplify, the converse of the first must necessarily be the indicative of the last, or possibly the second, if it is indeed going against itself, against the way of the world.

To make matters more confusing, the Hegel#Publications and other writings section claims in 1798, he published anonymously a book that came before the The Difference and POS. As long as this source is accurate, then I think it would be safe to remove claims to which book came first. However, I can't seem to find the source for this claim.

Let's add more confusion: Georg_Wilhelm_Friedrich_Hegel_bibliography does not have the book in 1798 published anonymously, but claims the The Difference as being the first.

One thing is clear: POS does not come first. MrSirGuyFriendBuddyOlPal (talk) 00:07, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

Hi @Billcipher123, thanks for your close attention to this article! The mistake is actually calling the Difference essay a book when it is actually a long essay. (It exists as a short book in English only because two long editors' introductions double the length of the text.) I don't know anything about the 1798 translation, but you can't really call the translation of someone else's work a book by Hegel. The source, though, which is given at the top of the section, is good (The Bloomsbury Companion to Hegel [pp. 341–43], Kenneth R. Westphal).

That said, I don't think there's any need to revert the edit. I'll just fix the bio section. Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 15:17, 1 March 2023 (UTC)