Wheel of the Winds Kindle Edition

Excellent!

Apparently there is some confusion between the novel I just read and a book on Hegel. I am reviewing the novel, "The Wheel of the Winds", by M.J. Engh.

This is a pretty good read in the Boys' Own Adventure school of novel (although there are important women in it as well). It's pretty much 100% adventure plot. There's a bit of mystery surrounding the Exile... but not much for anyone who knew they were reading sf.

The world is pretty interesting. It's a cloud-covered world like Venus, and one in which one hemisphere is always facing the sun, and the other always dark. I'm not sure if the science behind it is plausible; I'd think that the hot side would be much hotter, and the cold side much colder- but there is an atmosphere, so it's plausible enough if one doesn't think about it too hard.

The motivations of the Exile and his people also seem a bit weak. They're going around to other planets, at great expense, to... collect weather data? Why?

While the characterization is pretty consistent, it's also pretty one-note. There's no bothering with that pesky growth stuff! But then, who'd have time when the plot is so eventful?

So- in my opinion it's OK, and probably more fun for people who like adventure tales. For myself, I prefer more thoughtfulness, like character intricacy and growth, a well-thought-out world that is more grounded in the science, etc. This could have been such a novel... but it's not.

Walter Arnold Kaufmann (1921-1980) was a German-American philosopher, translator, and poet, who taught for over 30 years at Princeton University. He wrote many other books, such as Critique of Religion and Philosophy,Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist, etc.

This book is paired with Hegel: Texts and Commentary, and both works were previously published as a single volume. Kaufmann wrote in the Preface to this book, "The aim of this book is as simple as its execution is difficult: to establish a comprehensive reinterpretation of Hegel---not just one facet of his thought but of the whole phenomenon of Hegel... Since 1905 a great deal of new material has come to light, including many important Hegel manuscripts as well as letters and documents. Most of it has never been translated into English, and British and American monographs on Hegel have persistentlyy ignored it."

Of Hegel's Logic, he observes, "the Logic is nothing else than Hegel's comprehensive analysis of philosophical Concepts and their relations to each other." (Pg. 72)

He observes that "The preface to the The Phenomenology of Mind is full of excellent aphorisms... To be sure, they are buried in mammoth paragraphs to forestall any popular appeal... the appearance of the pages is forbidding enough to frighten away browsers. But the reader who perseveres is brought up short every now and then by a striking epigram. The pity is that Hegel, too, is brought up short, shocked at his own unscientific manner, and intent on making amends immediately. But after a while it happens again... Many a witty observation or fine formulation is successfully concealed in a long sentence where even the few readers who find it are likely to mutter something like `couldn't be' and go on." (Pg. 100-101)

He makes the significant observation, "Fichte introduced into German philosophy the three-step of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis; using these three terms, Schelling took up this terminology; Hegel did not. He never once used these three terms together to designate three stages of an argument or account in any of his books... Whoever looks for the stereotype of the allegedly Hegelian dialectic in Hegel's Phenomenology will not find it. What one does find on looking at the table of contents is a very decided preference for triadic arrangements... But these many triads are not presented or deduced by Hegel as so many theses, antitheses, and syntheses. It is not by means of any dialectic of that sort that his thought moves up the ladder to absolute knowledge." (Pg. 154-155)

He notes, "There is a legend abroad that the student of Hegel must choose in the end between the system and the dialectic, and it is widely supposed that the right wing Hegelians chose the system while the left wing, or the `young' Hegelians, including Marx, chose the dialectic. But I am by no means rejecting the dialectic in order to elect the system; I disbelieve both. And I am not so much rejecting the dialectic as I say: there is none. Look for it, by all means; see what Hegel says about it and observe what in fact he does. You will find some suggestive remarks, not all of them in the same vein, as well as all kinds of affectations; but you will not find any plain method that you could adopt even if you wanted to." (Pg. 160)

He also clarifies that in Philosophy of Right, "Hegel does NOT present Prussia as the culmination of the historical process, and his construction of world history does not depend on any such implicit assumption. That Germany was, during Hegel's lifetime, in the forefront of Western civilization seems undeniable; but Hegel does not say that Germany represents the pinnacle of the historical process. He merely believes, and wants to show, that for all its many ups and downs there has been a slow and painful development to the point... that all men as such are free. And he understands world history as the gradual development of this recognition." (Pg. 260)

He also suggests of Hegel's Philosophy of History, "most of the passages that have given offense come from the students' notes, not from Hegel's manuscript." (Pg. 267)

Kaufmann's "reinterpretations" are sometimes at odds with those of other scholars; but this is a fascinating and stimulating volume that will be of immense interest to anyone seriously studying Hegel.

Walter Kaufmann's study of Hegel is astonishingly erudite and highly-readable. It is not intended to be an overview of Hegel's thought; rather, it is a supplement to further study.

Kaufmann is mostly occupied with correcting previous misinterpretations of Hegel's thought, providing useful philological material, and interpreting Hegel's philosophy in the light of extensive biographical research. It is clearly the outcome of many years of intensive study, and one comes away with the impression that Kaufmann pored over every letter and monograph he could find.

What the book does NOT contain is a clear, flowing exegesis or interpretation of Hegel's thought. Unlike Kaufmann's "Nietzsche", Hegel's development is looked at chronologically. It is difficult to get a clear sense of Hegel's overarching thought from this study. Bursts of commentary and exegesis are broken by long, technical digressions. A wealth of footnotes provides extreme detail about discrepancies in different versions of Hegel's texts and comments on their editors and redactors.

If you are looking for a tool to assist you in reading Hegel for yourself, this book will make a valuable companion. As an introduction to the thought of Hegel, I recommend Charles Taylor's Hegel and Modern Society.