The Phenomenology of Spirit

Citation

Hegel, G. W. F. (2019). The Phenomenology of Spirit (T. Pinkard, Ed. and Trans.). Cambridge University Press.

Chapter Summary

This is Terry Pinkard's translation in the Cambridge Hegel Translations series. It was published in 2018 in hardback and digital form, and the paperback listed here followed in 2019 (about 540 pages). Pinkard's introduction (pp. ix–xxxvi) and translator's note (pp. xxxvii–xlvi) come before Hegel's text, which runs from the preface to absolute knowing in pp. 3–467. Two short pieces, Hegel's advertisement and a note to himself, follow, then further reading and a glossary of translated terms.

Context and Argument

Hegel's 1807 work was published as the first part of a planned "System of Science." It is a demanding introduction to philosophical science rather than the system itself: it follows the "shapes" that consciousness takes, from the simplest claims to know an object to a standpoint from which thought understands its own development. The first three sections (Consciousness, Self-Consciousness, Reason) deal with shapes of individual consciousness; the later ones (Spirit, Religion, Absolute Knowing) deal with collective, social and historical shapes. Each shape is tested from within, and its failure leads to the next.

Preface and Introduction

The Preface (pp. 3–48) is unusually long. It presents the work as a "ladder" leading from ordinary knowledge to speculative thinking and criticizes rival approaches to truth, including appeals to feeling and the imposition of fixed schemas. The Introduction (pp. 49–59) rejects the idea that cognition must be examined before one can know anything, and sets out the method: each form of consciousness is tested against its own standard, and where it fails, a new shape emerges.

A. Consciousness (pp. 60–101)

The first section examines basic forms of consciousness of an object. It moves from sense-certainty, with its claim to know the immediately present, through perception of things with properties, to force and the understanding, where scientific explanation posits a supersensible inner world. The theme throughout is the relation between the particular object and the universal terms used to know it.

B. Self-Consciousness (pp. 102–135)

Consciousness now takes itself as its object. The section moves from desire to the encounter between two self-consciousnesses seeking recognition, usually discussed under lordship and bondage, and then to the forms of inner freedom (Stoicism, Scepticism) and the unhappy consciousness, divided between a changeable self and an unchangeable beyond.

C. (AA) Reason (pp. 136–252)

Reason is the certainty of being all reality. It first looks for itself in nature and in the individual by observation, then in action, and then asks what makes an individual's deeds and moral laws valid. It is longer than Consciousness and Self-Consciousness together and includes Hegel's criticism of observing reason, including physiognomy and phrenology, and of moral law-testing.

(BB) Spirit (pp. 253–389)

Spirit is reason actual in shared social life. The section moves from the ethical order of the Greek world through culture and alienation, with faith and enlightenment, to absolute freedom and its consequences, and ends with morality, conscience and forgiveness. It is the longest section of the book.

(CC) Religion (pp. 390–453)

Religion treats Spirit's consciousness of itself in forms of representation, from natural religion through the religion of art to revealed religion, which Hegel treats as the highest religious form.

(DD) Absolute Knowing (pp. 454–467)

The brief last section presents the standpoint reached when consciousness understands its path and the one-sidedness of its earlier frameworks, which clears the way for the science of logic.

Appendix and Apparatus

The Appendix (pp. 468–469) prints Hegel's advertisement and a note to himself. The Further Reading (pp. 470–474) and Glossary of Translated Terms (pp. 475–483) support study; a reviewer describes the glossary as definitional.

Key Concepts

Method and early sections

• Shape of consciousness: a form of consciousness with its own standard for knowledge, tested from within.
• Immanent critique: a shape is shown to fail by its own standard, leading to the next.
• Sense-certainty, perception, force and understanding: successive attempts to know an object.
• Recognition: the need of a self-consciousness for acknowledgment by another, central in lordship and bondage.
• Unhappy consciousness: a consciousness divided between its changeable self and an unchangeable beyond.

Reason, Spirit and after

• Reason: the certainty of being all reality, pursued through observation and action.
• Spirit: reason as the shared life of an ethical community.
• Alienation and culture: the estrangement of the individual from social substance in the world of culture.
• Absolute knowing: self-understanding of the whole course of shapes.

Critical Analysis

Strengths

• An aim of clarity. Reviewing the translation in Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, Fred Rush praised Pinkard's statement of his approach to translating, and judged his aim of rendering the text as clearly as possible, without letting a philosophical interpretation set the terms, to be well realized. Choice called it a welcome update of a classic.
• Choices that matter in practice. Rush notes that Pinkard renders Verhalten as "conduct," which brings out that consciousness is a doing and not only a knowing, and Wirklichkeit as "actuality," a choice shared with Inwood's rival translation.
• Scholarly apparatus. The edition numbers paragraphs and gives marginal pagination to the standard German edition, which makes passages easy to cite and cross-reference; a 28-page introduction, a translator's note, further reading and a glossary add to this.
• Overview and history. Rush describes the introduction as a trusty overview of the main themes together with a lively account of the work's production.

Limitations

• No line-by-line commentary. Rush contrasts Pinkard's synoptic introduction with Michael Inwood's paragraph-by-paragraph commentary in the rival translation, so this edition needs a companion for readers who want guidance through each section.
• A difficult text. The Phenomenology is demanding and was not meant to stand alone as Hegel's system; readers without grounding in Kant and the history of modern philosophy will find it hard going.
• The gain over earlier translations is modest. Rush judged both new translations to improve on A. V. Miller's version but not to be vastly superior to it, so earlier translations remain usable for a first encounter.

Where It Fits in the Course

This is a primary text, so it comes after the course's introductions. David West's historical introduction traces continental philosophy from Kant and the Enlightenment through Hegel, Marx, Kierkegaard and Nietzsche, and sets Hegel in context; Simon Critchley's short introduction gives a briefer map of the tradition. Sarah Bakewell's narrative history covers the twentieth-century phenomenology and existentialism, movements that Cambridge's description says were shaped in reaction to Hegel's radical claims, along with Marxism and American pragmatism.

Heidegger's Being and Time and Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil are later primary texts in the same course. Read alongside Hegel, they allow comparison of three very different styles of philosophical writing.

How to Use This Book

This book is for students who have a grounding in Kant and in the history of modern philosophy and who ideally have a course or commentary to guide them. It is not suited to self-study as a first encounter with Hegel.

A practical plan: start with Pinkard's introduction and translator's note; then read the Introduction (pp. 49–59) before the Preface, since the Preface is harder and makes more sense once the method is clear. Read Consciousness and Self-Consciousness (pp. 60–135) as a unit of about 75 pages. From Reason onwards, choose by interest: observing reason and the moral sections of Reason and Spirit for ethics and philosophy of mind; the ethical order, culture and alienation for social and political thought; Religion and Absolute Knowing for completeness. Use the glossary whenever a technical term recurs, and the paragraph numbers when making notes.

Alongside the text, keep a one-page map of shapes and the reason each fails; this keeps the argument in view across the 400 or so pages.