The Difference Between Fichte's and Schelling's System of Philosophy [Hardcover]

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes

Text: English, German (translation)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 213 pages
• Publisher: State Univ of New York Pr; First Edition edition (June 1977)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0873953363
• ISBN-13: 978-0873953368
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,786,523 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars How the Absolute makes a Difference, July 22, 2011

By 

Stephen Cowley (Edinburgh) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Difference Between Fichte's and Schelling's System of Philosophy (Paperback)

This work, the Differenzschrift (1800), rather than the Phenomenology of Spirit (1806) deserves to be known as Hegel's first book, though it is generally classed as a long essay. It was written at the start of his time in Jena after the death of his father and sets out to make his name.

As you can tell from the title, Hegel compares Fichte's subjective take on Kant in the Wissenschaftslehre that denies the 'thing-in-itself' and Schelling's obscure Philosophy of Nature. However, the book also engages with more empirical and psychological approaches to the study of the mind, including the idea of common sense philosophy, which he criticises for taking isolated propositions as starting points rather than seeing them in the 'light of the Absolute' (i.e. in the context of experience as a whole), but does not reject other than for that reason. This point is taken up again in the Phenomenology Preface, but it is expressed here in plainer language.

In general, Hegel's obscure mode of expression began with the middling essays of the Jena writings in the Critical Journal. I would thus recommend this book as an introduction to Hegel for its relative clarity. Other than that, if you want a clear introduction to Hegel, I'd recommend the early chapters of the Encyclopaedia Logic (Hegel's Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences), which are included in Weiss's 'Hegel: the Essential Writings'. The translation by Cerf and Harris is as good as can be in the modern style, given the problems of language.