Hegel and After: Studies in Continental Philosophy between Kant and Sartre (review)

238 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY Hegel and After: Studies in Continental Philosophy between Kant and Sartre. By Richard Schacht. (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1975. Pp. xviii + 297. $15.95, cloth; $3.95, paper) Much of the development of Continental philosophy in the nineteenth century and even today is relatively unknown territory for many of today's philosophers, particularly those of the Anglo-American analytic school. In an effort to overcome what he calls inadequate and sometimes shabby treatment of so important a philosophical tradition, Richard Schacht has presented an excellent account of the period between Kant and Sartre, an account that finds its unifying theme in Hegel and the Hegelian influence. Despite some unevenness, Schacht's work is one of the best such efforts undertaken in recent years. Schact's text is divided into four distinct sections. The first, consisting of two chapters, is basically an introduction to Hegel and the general post-Hegelian tradition with which Schacht deals. In the first chapter, an overview of the Hegelian tradition, Schacht claims that Hegel, Marx, Kierkegaard, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche more than Kant "set the stage" for later developments in contemporary Continental philosophy. The unity in purpose and the common interests pursued by otherwise diverse philosophers are well outlined by Schacht, as are the distinct and opposing conclusions at which they arrived. The most disappointing aspects of this chapter are the very few paragraphs devoted to Schopenhauer. They are interesting so far as they go, but they do not go far enough, particularly since Schopenhauer is the only one of the group discussed who does not get a separate chapter later in the book. Chapter two is a concise but thorough discussion of significant philosophical developments prior to Hegel. Schacht's emphasis is on Kant, of course, and his discussion is particularly good, although the claim that Kant's transcendental idealism is also "a kind of realism" is somewhat confusing. The chapter concludes with brief but adequate discussions of Fichte and Schelling that set the stage for the discussions of Hegel and the Hegelian tradition which follow. The first chapter of the second section is a detailed and very careful analysis of the preface to Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit. Although one may doubt Schacht's claim that one could understand the essentials of Hegel's philosophy and appreciate its greatness even if one had nothing more than Hegel's introductory materials, the importance of this particular prefatory material cannot be doubted. The analysis in this chapter alone is virtually worth the price of the book and should serve as an invaluable guide through the subtle intricacies of the Phenomenology for novice and expert alike. My only substantive criticism of this chapter is with respect to Schacht's somewhat apologetic defensiveness about the vaue of reading Hegel. Even considering the type of audience for which he intends his book, it seems unnecessary to claim that it is better to read Hegel for the sake of "discovering the various particular insights he may have" than not read him at all. Surely, Hegel's greatness as a philosopher is not to be measured by some particular insights or by the correctness of his general system. Rather, it is to be measured by his influence and by the tradition he developed, for good or for bad. Such influence and tradition are obvious: Schacht's own book is eloquent testimony to them. Almost half of the next chapter on Hegel's concept of freedom involves a generally enlightening discussion of the nature and importance of the concept of freedom in general and of the view of several of Hegel's predecessors on it. For Hegel, freedom, of course, involves the development of rational self-determination within the truly rational state. Schacht follows Hegel carefully through his distinctions between the genuinely organized state and the several corrupt and incomplete forms he so forcefully condemned. All in all, the discussion is a good one and serves well as a valuable summary of Hegel's social and political philosophy that developed from within his broader metaphysical system. In the final chapter of this section Schacht argues that Marx is best described as a "socignaturalist " rather than as the materialist...