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Before and After Hegel: A Historical Introduction to Hegel's Thought

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This is a cogent short work on the central place of Hegel in modern philosophy, containing a crisp account of the transition between the era of Kant and his successors. So this book is also most usefully about the 'before and after' of Kant. The interest of this transition springs from the decisive character, almost a spell, of the Hegelian influence, in the wake of the crisis of critical thinking and the unsettled questions of foundationalism precipated by the reaction to the seminal work of Kant. Following the swift passage from Kant's system, through to the alternate universe of Hegelian logic and phenomenology, leaves a spellbinding enigma, whose outcome is never certain, witness the cascade of dialectical reversals of all the basic questions. From the critique of metaphysics to the Hegelian absolute science is a whitewater of dangerous currents, and this book tells its tale beautifully, for those who will follow the trail in the devout wish of being a philosopher.