John Burbidge-King

John Burbidge shows that, far from incorporating everything into an all-consuming necessity, Hegel's philosophy requires the novelty of unexpected contingencies to maintain its systematic pretensions. To know without fear of failure is to expect that experience will confound our confident claims to knowledge. And the universal character of all life involves acting, discovering what happens as a result, and incorporating both intention and result into a new comprehensive understanding. Burbidge explores how Hegel applied this approach when he turned from his logic to chemistry, biology, psychology and history, and suggests how a Hegelian might function within the changed circumstances of contemporary science

George Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel has seldom been considered a major figure in the history of logic. His two texts on logic, both called The Science of Logic, both written in Hegel's characteristically dense and obscure language, are often considered more as works of metaphysics than logic. But in this highly readable book, John Burbidge sets out to reclaim Hegel's Science of Logic as logic and to get right at the heart of Hegel's thought. Burbidge examines the way Hegel moves from concept to concept through every chapter of his work, and traces the origins of Hegel's effort to "think through the way thought thinks" to Plato, Kant, and Fichte. Having established the framework of Hegel's logical thought, Burbidge demonstrates how Hegel organized the rest of his system, including the Philosophy of Nature, Philosophy of Spirit and his Lectures on World History, Art, Religion and Philosophy. A final section discusses English-language interpretations of Hegel's logic from the nineteenth through twentieth centuries. Burbidge's The Logic of Hegel's 'Logic' is written with an eye to the reader of general interests, avoiding as much as possible the use of Hegel's technical vocabulary. It is an excellent introduction to an otherwise very difficult text, and has recently appeared in an Iranian translation.

Georg Wilhelm Freidrich Hegel is now recognized as one of the great philosophers; his concept of the dialectic profoundly influenced the course of Western thought, and—particularly through the lens of Marxist philosophy—continues to exert great influence even today. Yet Hegel himself has often been accused of being a philosopher of reaction: on the political sphere the polar opposite of Marx. It was not until the publication of Jacques D’Hondt’s _Hegel en son temps_ that the vision of Hegel as a supporter of the oppressive post-Napoleonic regime in Prussia gave way to the realization that Hegel was appointed by the liberal wing of the Prussian bureaucracy, that he frequently was at odds with the reactionary forces, and that he supported many of the leading student activists of his day. _Hegel en son temps_ has previously been translated into German and Italian, but has never before been available in English. Its publication now will be welcomed throughout the English-speaking world by scholars and students alike.

Hegel suggests that spirit, in contrast to animal nature, can encounter infinite agony in the death of what was its center, and yet, by dwelling with this loss, emerge into a new form of existence. The paradigm for this move is described toward the end of the chapter on Revealed Religion in the Phenomenology of Spirit. An analysis of the key paragraph introduces a discussion of four questions: Why is this experience triggered by the death of a mediator? What characterizes the spiritual metamorphosis that results? Are such transformations restricted to revealed religion? And what does this defining characteristic tell us about the way spiritual life differs from the natural?

At a time when Hegel studies were virtually non-existent in North America, Emil Fackenheim began teaching at the University of Toronto, in a department strongly committed to the history of philosophy. He taught medieval philosophy to third-year students in the honours program, and a course on metaphysics and the philosophy of history to students in fourth year honors, a combination of interests that found expression in his Aquinas Lectures of 1961: Metaphysics and Historicity. It was, however, his graduate course on Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel, given for over thirty years, that inspired many to take up the challenge of German idealism. “One day I took my courage in my hands and told F. H. [Anderson, then head of the department] that I wanted to teach a course on Hegel. ‘Do you understand Hegel?’ he asked. The question was more like an assault. ‘Yes,’ I lied, and went on to teach Kant, Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel in all the years ahead.”

At a time when Hegel studies were virtually non-existent in North America, Emil Fackenheim began teaching at the University of Toronto, in a department strongly committed to the history of philosophy. He taught medieval philosophy to third-year students in the honours program, and a course on metaphysics and the philosophy of history to students in fourth year honors, a combination of interests that found expression in his Aquinas Lectures of 1961: Metaphysics and Historicity. It was, however, his graduate course on Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel, given for over thirty years, that inspired many to take up the challenge of German idealism. “One day I took my courage in my hands and told F. H. [Anderson, then head of the department] that I wanted to teach a course on Hegel. ‘Do you understand Hegel?’ he asked. The question was more like an assault. ‘Yes,’ I lied, and went on to teach Kant, Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel in all the years ahead.”

Over the years, in various journals, I have seen lengthy articles about Hegelianism in Poland, in Japan, or in Holland. Never, however, have I seen anything about Hegel studies in Canada. In Europe, for example, anglophone Canadians are simply identified with Americans. On the other hand, in the membership list of the Hegel Society of America, Canadians are lumped together with all the others “outside the U.S.A.”—this despite the fact that three times over the past thirteen biennia Canadians have been elected president of the HSA, and three Canadians vice-president.

This is a good book. The quality of Flay’s analysis grows on the reader as he moves from the introductory comments, through the discussions of self-consciousness, reason, and spirit. We have here an interpretation of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit which does justice to the Hegelian project and at the same time renders most, if not all, of the standard criticisms ineffective. But it is not just a new reading of a work which has challenged many commentators of the past and present. In addition this volume provides us with a thorough critical review of most of the literature on the Phenomenology up to 1980. The bibliography includes 543 references, each of which is either discussed or referred to, in many cases more than once, in the 140 pages of detailed notes. From now on no student of this work of Hegel can avoid turning to Flay, if only to find out what his predecessors have said.

In the conclusion to his long book on Hegel, Michael Inwood cites a passage describing the way Stephen Spender’s tutors approached the study of philosophy: “This might be described as the Obstacle Race way of teaching philosophy. The whole field of human thought is set out with logical obstacles and the students watch the philosophers race around it.” Inwood mentions it because “it represents … one of the ways in which we should not treat Hegel - disqualifying him from the race altogether on account of his obscurity or allowing a simplified parody of him to stumble at an early stage”.

When he died in 1831, Hegel had just completed a revision of the first Book of the Science of Logic, “The Doctrine of Being”. Since the revised edition has been consistently used in subsequent printing, the first edition disappeared from view, to surface again only in 1966 when Vanderhoeck and Ruprecht of Gottingen published a facsimile reprint. Along with the never-revised “Doctrine of Essence” of 1813, that original text of Book I has now received elegant treatment in volume 11 of the critical edition.