Hegel's Phänomenologie des Geistes: Die Bestimmung ihrer Idee in "Vorrede" und "Einleitung" (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 115 a letter to Lambert, dated December 31, 1765, Kant wrote that he had found "a method that must be employed in order to avoid such delusions of knowledge." In the light of such statements Ward's assertion (p. 47) that "by 1770 Kant had succumbed to the dream of metaphysics" makes no sense. And in his Kant-approved biography of Kant, Borowaski explicitly states that the Dreams contain the germinal thought of the Critique o/ Pure Reason. To be sure, in the Dissertation of 1770, Kant once more raises the problem of the possibility of theoretical metaphysics. But raising the problem is not to succumb to metaphysics in the speculative sense. Also, the Reflections---especially the Reflections up to about 1766 (roughly 6610-7308), which Ward completely neglects--indicate that by this time Kant had evolved the essentials of the first two sections of the Grundlegung. See, for example, his projection of the "metaphysical [in the Kantian sense] foundations of practical philosophy" of 1765--20 years before the Grundlegung. If I seem to be too critical of certain aspects of Professor Ward's interpretation of Kant's developing philosophy, I can say only that I am so critical because I deeply respect his main thesis--the thesis that Kant's general teleological point of view is essential to his ethics. I merely wish that a good book might have been made perfect. W. H. WERKMEISTER Florida State University Hegels Phiinomenologie des Geistes: Die Bestimmung ihrer ldee in "Vorrede" und "Einleitung ." By Werner Marx. (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1971. Pp. 127) This work treats issues pertaining to the general interpretation of Hegel's Phiinomenologie , most specifically relating to the contents of the Preface and Introduction. The first six chapters might aptly serve, in this reviewer's opinion, to assist students through these preliminary portions of Hegel's first major work, in anticipation of the kind of detailed study of particular portions of the body of the work which an introduction to general concepts and strategies cannot displace. Based upon lectures and seminars conducted at the New School for Social Research in New York and at the University of Freiburg, the work is written in a lucid and readable style and is suitably comprehensive for this use. Following a foreword, in which the author sets forth the problem of interpretation posed by the Phiinomenologie, and a "Historical Recollection," are seven chapters: "Natural Consciousness," "Appearing Knowledge," "Natural Consciousness and Science," "Philosophy of Reflection and Absolute Reflection," "Consciousness and Spirit," "The Role of the Phenomenologist and the Genesis of the Concept of Science," and "The Idea of The Phenomenology o/Spirit and its Significance for the Understanding of Philosophy Following Hegel." Hegel's metaphysics is construed as in the tradition of Logos philosophy, if Logos is understood in its specifically modern sense as informed by Kant (p. 19). Indeed, it is the complete development of the actual as Logos which comes to expression in Hegel (p. 73). The course of the dialectic exhibits the Begriff, which does not remain an a priori apperception as for Kant (p. 99). The Phiinoraenologie as preparation for science has a double task, one aspect of which is to set forth the concept of science in the form of absolute knowledge as the dynamic (Vollzug) necessity of absolute reflection. The other is to convince the natural consciousness , which in Hegel's time wished to be scientific, that its element is not other than the principle of natural consciousness (p. 67). Following this problematic, appearing knowledge (erscheinendes Wissen) must be shown to be developed to become absolute knowledge . In this process, everything is subject to doubt; the skepticism thus expressed is so radical that it includes the self as the measure of appearance. 116 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY Most important with respect to the concept of Spirit in the Phiinomenologie is that it is the unity of subject and substance, and that historically realized substance means ethical substance (p. 71). But the work is from one end to the other empirical science as well as a science of mind (p. 70). With Hyppolite Marx affirms that spirit (mind) is not other than the experience of objective spirit...