Hegel in Kyoto
Why is there something rather than nothing? The fact of existence cannot be explained by an appeal to any beings, since this would assume what it wants to prove.…

Why is there something rather than nothing? The fact of existence cannot be explained by an appeal to any beings, since this would assume what it wants to prove.…

Hegel’s philosophy is notoriously difficult, but when I first studied his Phenomenology and Philosophy of Right in the mid 1970s I was struck by a simple idea that is at the core of both works: you can’t be yourself by yourself, but you need others in order to be who you are.…

Hegel has a reputation as a difficult philosopher, and often people treat the complexities of his texts as being due to his intensely systematic aims.…

I remember, as if it were yesterday, the moment I committed to studying Hegel. I was reading the Phenomenology of Spirit cover-to-cover for the first time.…

Hegel’s philosophy is shaped by his extreme systematic ambition: He argues that everything is interconnected, in one system, with one source of intelligibility for everything; and he commits to building his system not on a merely assumed foundation, but on arguments that engage philosophers who disagree, or those who are not already within his system.…

One of the things that I find especially compelling in Hegel is the idea that philosophy should not try to have a direct impact on what there is.…