Hegel for Just-Past-the-Dummy-Stagers?

I read a short overview of Hegel by Peter Singer contained in this anthology which may or may not be his Hegel: a Very Short Introduction repackaged. It turned out to be so fascinating that I would like recommendations on something that goes deeper than its 110 pages but isn't totally arcane. From what I can tell I'll never manage Hegel in his own words, and though Singer gives a bibliography of further reading, it's stuff that was in print thirty years ago and no longer available.

The last book on Hegel I read was Hegel and the Hermetic Tradition by Magee. It's not the usual take on Hegel as a canonical philosopher, but it seemed to hold together pretty well, and it was a good read.

Hegel is a good place to start. Good coverage without getting lost in detail.

Thanks for the replies!

Second the Beiser. Thanks for the reminder, I should re-acquire it.

Instead of, or in addition to, books, there are several courses offered by The Teaching Company that deal with Hegel as part of larger topics. Check in libraries and video stores for courses to borrow, or look on eBay.

I took a class in The Philosophy of Right during my MA and somehow managed to get the credit, although I thought at points I might bash my brains out simply to end the pain. It was a deeply humbling experience.

Apropos the previous post, I would recommend Hegel's Critique of Liberalism as a good place to start if you are interested in the Philosophy of Right.

The Singer is terrible, but Beiser is a good beginner's resource. You might also try Adorno's Hegel: Three Studies, which functions as a good introduction to how readers might interpret Hegel.

You might not like this answer, but I would be very careful relying on anybody but Hegel himself. Secondary or tertiary literature often represents misunderstandings or possible interpretations among other possibilities. I have found that to be particularly the case with English texts about Hegel.

The mere translation of Hegel into English constitutes in my opinion an impossible challenge. I studied Hegel as a native German speaker in German, and understanding what he is trying to say is breathtakingly difficult in many respects even in this ideal situation. Like so many philosophers, Hegel invented his own language by infusing common words with specialized meaning. That makes it deceptively simple to read meaning into these words and particularly translations that remove readers from the potential of the original words used and shoehorn them into not fully congruent words. The real meaning often is lost and replaced by pseudo-knowledge of original texts and interpretation in an attempt to make sense of it.

I found that Hegel only becomes comprehensible after one has read a lot of his works - repeatedly - and one has become conversant in his language. This took me several years - and still much of what he meant seemed inaccessible.

Short of going through such studies, my advice would be to at least find out whether the author whose summaries you read was fully capable to, and actually did, study Hegel's work in the original German.

- Martin Janello

Failing the above, one can always deploy the following methodology:

faking your way through Hegel

I just ran across a suggestion on the blog of a friend of mine, and thought I'd pass it along -- he recommends The Logic of Desire: An Introduction to Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit by Peter Kalkavage.

Absolutely brilliant link, March Hare - and so true. I found very little readiness by philosophy students and of course even less by professors to acknowledge that some of Hegel's stuff is incomprehensible. Pretending to understand what is incomprehensible cannot be disproved and impresses others. So why admit one's lack of understanding? I think there is a lot of that going on, not only with regard to Hegel.

At some point one also has to ask: Do we hold famous philosophers in high regard in part because we do not understand them but believe because of that lack of understanding that they must have been much smarter than we?

This attitude and our attempts to identify ourselves with teachings we don't understand to appear similarly smart place a heavy pall on philosophy.

Honest philosophy requires the unpretentious attitude of the child in The Emperor's New Clothes.

I guess my motto would be "don't throw the baby out with the bathwater". Something can be difficult or even "wrong" and still philosophically useful.

Quite a timely bump. I picked up Philosophy of the Right last week, enjoyed the foreword, didn't understand anything of §1, didn't understand anything of §2 either and then gave up. I'll try again in five years maybe.

To be clear, I am not saying that Hegel, philosophically speaking, wears no clothes like in the Grimm tale. The extremes to which he drives abstract thought are noteworthy.

However, I think it is fair to place the burden for explaining a philosophy in comprehensible terms on the originating philosopher and anybody subscribing to, or even substantively referring to, that original philosophy.

Logically, such individuals should be interested in making their arguments comprehensible. The fact that such an interest seems to be lacking bears further investigation. This is a serious subject because philosophical considerations and the lack thereof can decide the fate of individuals and humanity. I have written an article about the responsibilities of professional philosophers to clearly express themselves (as well as further responsibilities in advancing and publicizing philosophical insight), which can be retrieved at http://www.palioxis.com/philosophy.