Customer Reviews

Hegel

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

A sweeping, insightful and erudite survey of Hegel's work, originally published in 1975 Taylor text has become a modern classic in the field of Hegelian studies. The following comments are offered for potential purchasers.

First, a few minor criticisms. From a physical perspective the text (paperback) is less than ideal; the font is small and at nearly 600 pages the book is a bit too bulky. Stylistically, Taylor has his eccentricities, occasionally mixing top flight academic prose with awkward colloquialisms and ill-fitting literary devices, e.g. an unnatural interspersing of untranslated French terms where English or German terminology would seem more appropriate.

These few drawbacks aside the text has much strength. Hegel is a notoriously difficult read for the uninitiated. In this regard Taylor is particularly effective in using an appropriate combination of technical Hegel-speak and non-Hegelian terminology to both maintain the author's meaning and make it more accessible. Perhaps the greatest value, of Taylor's work, however, is the corrective it offers to much modern Hegelian scholarship. Often scholars are guilty of reading their worldviews back into the thought of earlier thinkers. While to a degree this is unavoidable, when overdone it can be quite misleading. An example of this is the tendency of twentieth century thinkers to read their atheistic/materialistic assumptions into early-modern thinkers such as Hobbes, Descartes, Kant and Hegel, often dismissing the clearly theistic views/comments of these early thinkers as nothing more than the idiom of the day and, in the process often recasting them as radical atheists. This is particularly distorting with regard to Hegel. Divorced from his pantheistic teleological view of embodied spirit much of his subsequent thought becomes incoherent nonsense. Finally, the concluding chapter on the contemporary relevance of Hegelian thought is helpful in situating Hegel in the modern Western tradition- although recent developments (i.e. the demise of communism), have likely made it of lesser interest to the broader public.

Overall the text is highly recommended for students of German idealism - an excellent if rather dense tomb. A solid background in modern philosophy, however, is likely a prerequisite to enjoying this work.

Since I'm not half through, I wouldn't be reviewing this if anyone else had stepped up. I'm enjoying the book. Hegel's been a sore spot ever since the seminar on the "Phenomenology of Spirit" where I felt like a complete illiterate trying to read him (in translation no less).

Since Hegel's practically the definition of "pseudo-philosophy" in the English-speaking world, it's fascinating to read this treatment by a sensible English (?) philosopher. Taylor does a great job in the 1st chapter setting up Hegel's problematic, with a survey of German romanticism and its issues. Those issues are in large part still with us today, so that Hegel's working on problems that should be of interest to us.

But are those problems solvable? Can we take seriously someone who argues that "the rational is real, and the real is rational"? Taylor's carefully developing and qualifying Hegel's claims of universal rationality and trying to see his case for them.

Even if you hate Hegel, or think you do, the great anti-Hegelian Bertrand Russell said that the 1st step to evaluating a philosophy is to engage with it as sympathetically as possible (in a bit of a Hegelian moment himself as I recall: sympathy-antipathy-evaluation). This book may be your best shot in English.

Nietzsche argued that (1) the world is meaningless and "irrational," and that (2) humans cannot accept (1). If he's right, then something like Hegel's system may be the necessary consequence.

This is obviously a fine commentary work on a classic philosopher, but it's also a very difficult book. As Taylor says in the introduction, one can not simplify Hegel's ideas too much without distorting them. Avoiding distortion has clearly been an important goal for him and I imagine that this is a very useful book for professional interpreters of Hegel. But students and laymen will find the majority of this book very difficult to understand, almost on a par with the original works. Be prepared for some torturous elaborations on the self-realizing Spirit.

However, there's one major exception. Taylor's discussion of Hegel's political philosophy, a fairly brief segment of just over 50 pages, is in my opinion magnificent and quite easy to understand. He raises some very interesting questions which I intend to explore further by reading Hegel's Philosophy of Right to start. Taylor's own philosophical acumen is particularly evident in this section and I found his application of Hegel's political philosophy to contemporary society most interesting. Of course these applications are mere examples, as Taylor's intention is not to present his own view of political philosophy in this book. But the examples were so interesting that they immediately kindled my interest for this aspect of Hegel's philosophy.

So in conclusion, I bought this book because I thought that Taylor would be a more manageable route to Hegel than the translated original works, but that was not really the case. I can't say I really understand more about Hegel's spiritual philosophy after reading this book than I did before. Taylor's presentation is difficult and I did not have sufficient interest to follow him through every twist and turn of Hegel's obscure system. For laymen interested in this system, I think an easier introductory book will be more helpful than this one. But as I indicated above, anyone interested in Hegel's political philosophy must read what Taylor has to say about it. I doubt that you'll find a more useful guide to that aspect in any other book.

And finally, I haven't read Taylor's other book, Hegel and Modern Society, but it seems like it may contain much the same material that I have praised here.

Taylor begins his narrative with the epistemological problems the Enlightenment posed against Medievalism and eventually against itself. These thinkers (Descartes, Bacon, Hobbes) held to an atomistic view of man and society. They rejected the medieval worldview of "final causes" (4). The world was no longer seen as "symbol manifesting the rhythm of the divine" (5).

This hard Enlightenment anthropology will itself break down (almost immediately). Some couldn't live without a God; these are the mild Deists. Others took the epistemology consistently and became radical materialists.

The German Romantic Counter-attack
Post-Reformation Germany never experienced the same "church versus state" problems that France did. Thus, German's religious expression to the Enlightenment was formed differently: pietism. Pietism stressed a heart-felt religious experience of the soul's meeting with Christ (11). There followed a denigration of dogma and confessional status. Like with the Enlightenment itself, the reaction in Germany went along two paths.

Self-Positing Spirit

This introduces Hegel's "identity of difference and identity." Starting slowly, following Taylor, here is what I think he means. Hegel is trying to overcome the Kantian duality. Hegel wants to overcome this with his notion of "overcoming oppositions." Therefore, identity cannot sustain itself on its own, but posits an opposition, but also a particularly intimate one (80). In short, Hegel married modern expression with Aristotle's self-realizing form (81).

Following this was Hegel's other point: the subject, and all his functions, however spiritual, were necessarily embodied (82-83).

The Contradiction Arises

Contrary to mindless right-wing bloggers, Hegel did not form the "dialectic" in the following way: we posit a thesis (traditional community), then we negate it (cultural marxism), which allows for the "synthesis" (our pre-planned solution all along). Here is what Hegel actually meant: there is reality, but the very structure of reality already contains a contradiction. The subject then must overcome that contradiction.

Taylor notes, "In order to be at all as a conscious being, the subject must be embodied in life; but in order to realize the perfection of consciousness it must fight and overcome the natural bent of life as a limit. The conditions of its existence are in conflict with the demands of its perfection (86).

Building on Hegel's premise that God/Geist/Spirit, which is the ultimate reality, must be embodied in history, it follows that one must ask in what manner is it embodied? One of the most fundamental modes, Hegel posits, is in religion (197). Briefly stated, Hegel sees each epoch in human history as manifesting religion, but always in a contradictory way. The Greeks were able to apprehend "the universal," but they could only do so in a finite and limited way (and thus the infinite/finite contradiction). This contradiction is not a bad thing, though, for it opened up the possibility of the Christian religion (with a detour through the Hebrews). Hegel sees the ultimate religious expression in the Incarnation.

A Dialectic of Categories

When one is studying reality, Hegel says, one can start anywhere in the system, for each facet is ultimately tied together (226). If we start with "Being" then our method will proceed dialectically. What he means by that is the very structure of reality has a contradiction, and in overcoming that contradiction Being moves forth to something else. Throughout the whole of this discussion, Hegel is starting from Kant and reworking the system along problems he sees in Kant.

To avoid confusion, and to silence the right-wing conspiracy bloggers, Hegel's idea of contradiction is this: he has a two-pronged argument, the first showing that a given category is indispensable, the second showing that it leads to a characterization of reality which is somehow impossible or incoherent (228).

Hegel is trying to overcome the dilemma that social life poses: per man's subjective life the important thing is freedom of spirit. However, man also lives in community and the norms of the community often bind his freedom of spirit (it is to Hegel's credit that he recognized this problem generations before Nietszche and the existentialists).

Hegel suggests the form man must attain is a social form (366). It is important to note that what Hegel means by "state" is much different than what Anglo-Americans mean by it. Hegel means the "politically organized community" (387). Let's explore these few sentences for a moment. Throughout his philosophy Hegel warns against "abstractions," by which he means taking an entity outside its network of relations. With regard to politics, if abstraction is bad then it necessarily follows that man's telos is in a community. Man comes into the world already in a network of relations.

Conclusion

As other reviewers noted, this book is excellent. I have a few qualms, though. While Taylor is correct that Hegel cannot simply be seen as a "conservative," Hegel does embody (pun intended) most of the main 19th century views of conservatism: fear or Revolution, fear of an unbridled free market, a hierarchical social order culminating in monarchy--Taylor notes the latter and is frankly embarrassed by it. Still, a good read.

This books represents and incredible way to get started (and clarify, if you are already had a class or read the author) on Hegels ideas. Charles Taylor book becomes a helpful way to understand hegels complex formulations on topics suchs as logic, history and essences (wich in my case was very useful).

I would definitely recommed this book for anybody who is interested on XIX century philosophy, german philosophy and/or political philosophy.