Abstract
This mini-dissertation focuses on the Introduction to the Phenomenology of Spirit where
Hegel addresses: (1) philosophy’s natural assumption about knowledge, which maintains that
before knowing the truth, we must examine our faculty of knowledge, its nature and limits;
(2) the progression of natural consciousness to absolute knowledge, which is described as a
pathway of doubt and despair, as an education and learning process, that is, as a sceptical
trajectory; and (3) the claim that the Phenomenology of Spirit carries out an immanent
critique of knowledge, which includes the problem of the criterion, and that finds its solution
in Hegel’s description of the structure of consciousness.
There are broadly speaking two ways of reading Hegel. There is, firstly, Hegel the
metaphysician in the tradition of rationalists like Spinoza. This reading of Hegel has largely
been championed by figures such as Charles Taylor (1975) and Michael Rosen (1984).
Secondly, there is Hegel the epistemologist in the tradition of Kant’s critical idealism. Notable
commentators of this kind of reading include Robert Pippin (1989, 2008, 2010), Terry Pinkard
(1994, 2000, 2012), Robert Brandom (2002, 2007, 2014) and John McDowell (2006). The latest
‘revised metaphysical’ reading of Hegel which is in fact, a post –Kantian reading of Hegel,
while acknowledging and taking seriously Kant’s critical philosophy, it further seeks to
accentuate Hegel’s critique of Kant and to insist on the irreducible role of metaphysics in
Hegel’s philosophy. Notable figures of this ‘new’ reading of Hegel include Stephen Houlgate
(1991, 2013), Robert Stern (2013), Kenneth Westphal (2003), and James Kreines (2006,
2008)1. I find this ‘revised’ reading of Hegel convincing and so, in this mini-dissertation, I align
my argument with this view, which reads Hegel as both a metaphysician and as someone
concerned with an epistemological problem pursued by Kant.
This mini-dissertation begins with the new metaphysics that Hegel attempts to institute – his
Absolute Idealism. Hegel is sometimes famous for saying: “What is rational is real; and what
is real is rational” (Hegel, 2001:18). What does he mean by this? He believes that everything
that is real is a creative manifestation of mind or spirit – that is what is meant by the real. As...
M.A. (Philosophy)