Hegel

A Very Short Introduction

By: Peter Singer

Narrated by: Christine Williams

Length: 3 hrs and 30 mins

Publisher's summary

Hegel is regarded as one of the most influential figures on modern political and intellectual development. After painting Hegel's life and times in broad strokes, Peter Singer goes on to tackle some of the more challenging aspects of Hegel's philosophy. Offering a broad discussion of Hegel's ideas and an account of his major works, Singer explains what have often been considered abstruse and obscure ideas in a clear and inviting manner.

©1983 Peter Singer (P)2021 Tantor

The most profound philosopher I’ve encountered

Hegel was a prodigious genius who revolutionized several fields and all human life. The largest challenge of it remains the unaddressed issues in Capitalism, which perhaps would have been resolved more organically had Marx not contrived to: “change the world”. Perhaps Hegel will have ultimately refuted himself by making us conscious of him, that is if he is read. Jung called him a psychologist in philosophers garb, which is wrong, as are any attempts to reduce philosophy to psychology. Instead, Hegel rejoined philosophy to our actual interests, rather than formulating ever more abstract conversations on the nature of truth as unconditioned, and uncontextual. His most beautiful idea, that of the birth of consciousness through another, not only is accurate as an account of evolution (apparently it is our sociality that makes us smart, and not the other way around, and our smartness is in fact largely of a social sort, with the neo cortex having surpassing functions precisely in the social context), but perhaps a new birth in the beingness of human. Hegel not only frees us as individuals from what enslaves us, but gives us a capacity for self-conception through the eyes of another. This is also what psychotherapy is, and in a sense Jung was correct: Hegel is the father of modern psychotherapy. Of human relating to human, and so being healed, and not relating merely to the idea of god in solitude.

Excellent explanation of Hegel’s ideas

The explanations are the clearest I have heard so far, I’m very glad I listened to it.

very short, very good

People acquainted with work which made Peter Singer will be baffled by his early authorship of a book on Hegel. it is, however, a very clearly written introduction to a very unclear philosopher.

Great introduction

This is a clear and well written introduction to Hegel’s thought. It is just a beginning, of course, but a good place to start. I recommend it.

What?

I’ve never before read a book that was so entirely disdainful towards its own subject; for much of the text the perspective is downright condescending towards Sartre, with outright dismissals of entire portions of his philosophical corpus accompanying paradoxical complaints that his system of thought is incomplete and insufficiently systematic. The entire mature body of Sartre’s thought is excluded for being politically wrongheaded; meanwhile his early works are explained as underbaked and conceptually unoriginal. That kind of conclusion is bound to follow if you remove from consideration the entire body of writing that marks his unique and developed philosophical contributions. It boggles the mind that someone would opt to write a summary of a philosopher, and then exclude from consideration the culminating conclusions of their project, while dismissing their earlier labors as naive.