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jaccarmac's review against another edition
challenging
slow-paced
1.0
The Phenomenology's prose is horrendous to behold, and I'm grateful to reach the culmination, that proof that the Preface was entirely correct and the argument only makes sense entire and Hegel requires a reread. Any number of proceeding books start looking like they attempt a response, which is a neat trick. This is all as much a self-judgement as a book review, and perhaps that says I learned something. I certainly don't have comprehension, and The Phenomenology of Spirit demands recursive comprehension.
I have no complaints about Pinkard's translation: Most of the text is in dense technical modern English and where Hegel breaks into poetics the work is the same material, unsmoothed. That makes the book resistant to lazy summary. For example, I have just enough understanding of double negation to win an argument against a thesis-antithesis-synthesist who has read the book zero or one times. Every other glimmer of recognition I distrust. Never have I been as called-out for reading myself into a text.
I (maddeningly) can't get inside this book in a convincing way, but I would venture something about the abstraction. The form is, especially from this century, extremely abstract. But there is a certain (small?) set of grounding principles for the edifice which attempts to be time and the reason for time. What a thing to fit in a book; It's good for you; That's my only recommendation.
I have no complaints about Pinkard's translation: Most of the text is in dense technical modern English and where Hegel breaks into poetics the work is the same material, unsmoothed. That makes the book resistant to lazy summary. For example, I have just enough understanding of double negation to win an argument against a thesis-antithesis-synthesist who has read the book zero or one times. Every other glimmer of recognition I distrust. Never have I been as called-out for reading myself into a text.
I (maddeningly) can't get inside this book in a convincing way, but I would venture something about the abstraction. The form is, especially from this century, extremely abstract. But there is a certain (small?) set of grounding principles for the edifice which attempts to be time and the reason for time. What a thing to fit in a book; It's good for you; That's my only recommendation.
hlouie's review against another edition
3.0
THIS BOOK IS SO HARD TO READ!!
If it wasn't for Peter Kalkagave's "The Logic of Desire" commentary, I'm not sure I would have gotten much out of it. I mean, numerous scholars have pushed Hegel to the curb because they don't think he's worth the time. And I honestly can't blame them.
I only began reading this book for a seminar I'm doing with Todd McGowan and it was my first read through. Todd McGowan had suggested "Get the first read through done fast and don't be concerned with understanding much..." And even with that expectation, it was HARD. Hegel references so many past philosophers and Greek mythology stories, with NO citations or explanations, that you really need a scholar or an academic to explain to you what he is referencing. The text is also incredibly dense, so you can spend a whole evening, just contemplating a paragraph.
All that said, I do love what Hegel is TRYING to do with this work and am grateful for the work of people like Peter Rollins, Todd McGowan, and Zizek who are bringing Hegel's theories on contradiction and spirituality back to life. With the help of the commentary, I could see how it felt like Spirit was being reborn and truth was being uncovered in every turn. I love how each event was thought through thoroughly, and Hegel engaged with each contradiction he came across. The ideas are inspiring; I just need more people to keep writing modern day versions so I can actually keep engaging with the content.
So it's a 5 star for the ideas, and a 1 star for the writing, which makes it a 3 star read.
If it wasn't for Peter Kalkagave's "The Logic of Desire" commentary, I'm not sure I would have gotten much out of it. I mean, numerous scholars have pushed Hegel to the curb because they don't think he's worth the time. And I honestly can't blame them.
I only began reading this book for a seminar I'm doing with Todd McGowan and it was my first read through. Todd McGowan had suggested "Get the first read through done fast and don't be concerned with understanding much..." And even with that expectation, it was HARD. Hegel references so many past philosophers and Greek mythology stories, with NO citations or explanations, that you really need a scholar or an academic to explain to you what he is referencing. The text is also incredibly dense, so you can spend a whole evening, just contemplating a paragraph.
All that said, I do love what Hegel is TRYING to do with this work and am grateful for the work of people like Peter Rollins, Todd McGowan, and Zizek who are bringing Hegel's theories on contradiction and spirituality back to life. With the help of the commentary, I could see how it felt like Spirit was being reborn and truth was being uncovered in every turn. I love how each event was thought through thoroughly, and Hegel engaged with each contradiction he came across. The ideas are inspiring; I just need more people to keep writing modern day versions so I can actually keep engaging with the content.
So it's a 5 star for the ideas, and a 1 star for the writing, which makes it a 3 star read.
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