Hegel: Phenomenology of Spirit (Week 1)

Hegel refers to his 1807 Phenomenology of Spirit as “the path of the soul wandering through the series of ways it takes shape, as if these were stations put forward in advance to it by its own nature”.

The idea here is that we can become self-consciously aware of how we understand ourselves and how that understanding shapes and is shaped by the life we share. But it is our peculiar fate that, in any effort to understand ourselves, we inevitably underestimate ourselves—are untrue to our very nature as knowers.

But knowing things, even knowing that we know things, and not knowing this—what it is for us to know—is a curious position to be in. It is our own understanding that underestimates itself, that becomes dissatisfied with itself, but also moves on from its own deficiencies by reflecting on them. Hegel takes it that these moments matter for understanding ourselves, and that they point the way to knowing what it means for us to know.

The sequence of these moments is a phenomenology of spirit, and at the beginning of that path, the end can be stated as a simple identity: to know is to know absolutely. At core, this is a claim about the importance of self-consciousness, of apperception, and the way in which it establishes for itself the objective validity of the pure concepts of the understanding—about what must matter to us about anything for anything we think to hold good.

Whether you’re new to discussing philosophical texts or just feel like you aren’t using the middle voice enough, we’d be happy to have you join!

Please read ahead and be prepared to discuss Hegel’s text in detail.

**Reading schedule by week:

1. Introduction: §§73–89
2. Consciousness: §§90–111, §§112–131
3. Consciousness: §§132–165
4. Self-Consciousness: §§166–177, §§178–196
5. Self-Consciousness: §§197–230
6. Reason: §§231–297, §§298–346
7. Reason: §§347–393, §§394–437
8. Spirit: §§438–483, §§484–537
9. Spirit: §§538–595, §§586–671
10. Religion: §§672–747, §§748–787
11. Absolute Knowing: §§788–808
12. Preface: §§1–72

For a translation, we're recommending Miller’s, but others will do just fine.