|
|
Hegel, the phenomenology of spirit, a guide in mp3 voice
01intro.mp3
"click the bottom arrow to listen, or download the mp3 file"
Mp3 PDF file 01intro.pdf download
http://jumbofiles.com/33cuhc9io6pi/101_intro.pdf.html
Text online 01intro.txt
Introduction
Immediately after Hegel's death in 1831 there emerged two schools, known as the Young (or Left) Hegelians and the Old (or Right) Hegelians, who offered radically different readings of Hegel's political philosophy. The Left Hegelians (such as Feuerbach, Marx, and Engels) saw in Hegel a utopian vision of freedom, community, and the triumph of the human spirit, while the Right Hegelians saw in Hegel a theocratic defence of the Prussian state, support for the status quo of absolute monarchy, and a quietistic conservatism. Since then, thinkers from across the political spectrum have viewed Hegel as an ally, while he is also taken as an enemy by others on both the left and the right. This feature of Hegel-reception is not confined to his political philosophy, but is repeated across the board. Thus, for some he is a Romantic critic of the Enlightenment and a source of anti-rationalism in modern thought, whilst for others he is an opponent of Romanticism and a defender of the authority of reason; similarly, for some he is a theological philosopher seeking to uphold Christian orthodoxy, while for others he is a radical atheist setting out to undermine religious faith; and, for some he is a thinker in the Kantian tradition, following out the latter's idealism, while for others he is Kant's most effective opponent, replacing Kant's failed philosophical endeavour with something new of his own. Thus, the story of Hegel's reception is far from simple: he has been taken up from all sides, and attacked from all sides, as the assessment of his position has shifted in contrary directions.
How is it that Hegel can be open to such contrasting interpretations? What makes his thought so protean, that his constituency of friends and foes is so heterogeneous? Why are allegiances to Hegel so changeable, so that at one time he can be appropriated by one side and then at another time by its opposite? These are questions that are raised by the Phenomenology as much as by any of Hegel's works, and they deserve some response.
An obvious place to look for an answer is in the nature of Hegel's writings themselves, and their notorious style. A first suggestion might be that through mere stylistic ineptitude, Hegel made his works so hard to understand that his readers could see in them whatever they wanted to find, leaving his writings unusually open to diverse appropriations. Now, it is of course true that it can be formidably difficult to read Hegel, and partly for no more than stylistic reasons: while he can write clearly and even well, his prose can also be dense, obscure, and overburdened with technical terminology and neologisms. But there is more to it than this. For testing though it often is, Hegel's writing is rarely unintelligible. A more substantial stylistic difficulty is not with comprehension per se, but in properly locating Hegel's own position within the work. For, in the Phenomenology in particular, Hegel takes up an unusual and highly distinctive stance towards his audience: the authorial voice is muted; the discussion is left 'unsignposted', so we are not told where we are going or what Hegel's final objectives are; other philosophers, texts, and historical episodes are alluded to but not explicitly identified; and positions are advanced in a way that may make them appear final, that then turn out to be provisional in the light of criticisms that appear much later on. Thus, even when it is clear enough what Hegel is saying, it is not always clear in what spirit it is being said, and how far it represents Hegel's actual view, so this remains elusive and open to contrasting interpretations. It often requires considerable exegetical sensitivity to establish whether Hegel is ultimately seeking to defend some position, or attack it, and thus which side he is really on.
However, Hegel's elusiveness cannot be fully explained simply by matters of style and method, as these only really create problems for the uninitiated. A more substantial explanation can perhaps be given in terms of context; for how Hegel is categorized depends to an unusual degree on the background against which he is placed, and with whom he is juxtaposed. Thus, to take an example: for those who treat Voltaire, Diderot, or Hume as paradigmatic Enlightenment figures, Hegel will appear as an obviously anti-Enlightenment thinker, because he shares none of their atheism, cosmopolitanism, or scientific naturalism; but in a more German context and against the background of critics of the Enlightenment like Jacobi, Herder, or Hamann, it is Hegel's commitment to the ideals of the Aufklflrung that stand out. Similarly, while comparisons with Kant or the early Fichte may appear to show that Hegel was a conservative political thinker, against the background of other theorists of his time (such as Karl Ludwig von Haller) Hegel may be represented as a liberal. Changes in historical perspective can therefore bring about radical re-evaluations of Hegel's position, as his ideas are thereby cast in a new light.
Not only does the issue of finding the right historical context make it difficult to categorize Hegel properly: a third factor is the nature of Hegel's thought itself, and its dialectical character. By this I mean that it is a central feature of Hegel's philosophical perspective, as we shall see, that on many disputes he does not seek to resolve them by taking up one side or the other, but rather tries to recast the issue by showing how the dichotomy underlying the dispute is false, and that it is therefore possible to integrate elements from both positions. This means that his standpoint is very hard to categorize in traditional terms: for while some aspects may come from one position, others may come from its apparent opposite, so that both sides in the debate can find some support for their position in his work, making this liable to contrary appropriations. Thus, for example, for many Hegel is identified as a Christian philosopher, where evidence from this appears to come from his hostility to the crude atheism of the Enlightenment; but Hegel's conception of Christianity is distinctive in that it attempts to undercut this Enlightenment critique of religious faith (which involves charging Christianity with irrationalism, dubious historical authenticity, and authoritarianism) by incorporating elements of this critique into a revised conception of Christian doctrine, so that his theism is designed to be compatible with the kind of humanism to which it is traditionally opposed. Hegel's position will therefore always prove unstable when the attempt is made to fit it within the traditional framework, as it appears that both sides have an equal right to claim him as an ally. Likewise, Hegel makes himself vulnerable to attack from those who use categories such as 'liberal', 'humanist', or 'rationalist' in a more simplistic way than is appropriate here: for, by attempting to incorporate other elements into these doctrines, Hegel can appear to be departing from them. Thus, for example, many humanists will take Hegel's positive remarks about religion to show he is a Christian philosopher who thereby repudiates humanism, while in fact Hegel is trying to subvert just this antithesis, and bring together both Christian and humanist elements in a way that does not undermine either side; but this makes him vulnerable to attack from those who do not recognize any possibility for compromise on this issue. As a result, by attempting to find room for what has been called 'the Hegelian middle', Hegel has made his position very hard to characterize in a stable way, for in his struggle to do justice to both sides, he may be claimed or attacked by either.
In what follows, I will attempt to make sense of this 'Hegelian middle', by showing how it is generally wrong to see Hegel as straight- forwardly occupying either one side or the other on many issues; rather, he is usually to be seen as attempting to undermine this opposition by showing that these two options form a false dichotomy, and that the best option lies in some sort of compromise between them. Thus, although Hegel is a critic of the Enlightenment in some aspects, it is simplistic to see him as an anti-Enlightenment thinker; likewise, although he sees some fundamental problems in the outlook of modernity, this does not make him a conservative; and although he attempts to go beyond a crude atheism, this does not make him a theist. The challenge in understanding Hegel is to do justice to this many-sidedness; for, as Hegel insisted, it is always tempting to simplify matters and return to rigid oppositions. The cost, however, is that we will greatly reduce the space on our conceptual map, and will end up oscillating between readings of Hegel and treatments of the issues themselves, that fail to do justice to the true complexity of the situation. By better respecting the dialectical nature of Hegel's outlook, I believe, we may finally arrive at a more stable and lasting assessment of his thought, and reach a proper understanding of the ambitious nature of what he was trying to achieve.
In the rest of the book, I therefore attempt to trace out Hegel's dialectical handling of a series of issues, as these are presented in the Phenomenology. In the first chapter, I set the Phenomenology in the context of Hegel's life and works, and characterize his dialectical method in more detail, while showing how the Preface and the Introduction to the Phenomenology can be used to shed some light on Hegel's intentions for the book as a whole. In subsequent chapters, I then deal with each chapter of the Phenomenology in turn, following through the discussion as it progresses from 'Consciousness' to 'Absolute Knowing', as Hegel tries to teach us how dialectical thinking is possible, and what it might ultimately achieve.
本文於 修改第 15 次
|
本城市首頁
等級：5
