Introduction to the Reading of Hegel: Lectures on the Phenomenology of Spirit is a book about Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel by Alexandre Kojève. Alexandre Kojève was a Russian-born French philosopher and statesman whose philosophical Some of Kojève’s more important lectures on Hegel have been published in English in the now classic Introduction to the Reading of Hegel. Jan 14, Introhution n rte Reading of Hegel: Lecttres on rle Phenomenology of Spirig . KojEve is the most thoughtful, the most learned, the most pro-.
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Introduction to the Reading of HegelBasic Books, ; the final chapter only reproduced here. We can give a first answer to this question by recalling a passage from the Encyclopaedia — more exactly, the Introduction to the First Part of the Encyclopaedia, entitled Logic. With regard to its form, logic has three aspects Seiten: This well-known text lends itself to two misunderstandings.
But in the explanatory Note, Hegel underlines that the three aspects are in reality inseparable. On the other hand, one might suppose that Dialectic is the preserve of logical thought; or in other words, that this passage is concerned with a philosophical method, a way of investigation or exposition. Now, in fact, this is not at all the case. Hegel takes care, moreover, to underline this in the Note that follows the passage cited. In this Note, he says the following: Volume V, pagelines These three aspects do not constitute three parts of Logic, but are constituent-elements Momente of every logical-real-entity Logisch-Reellenthat is, of every concept or of everything that is true jedes Wahren in general.
Everything that is true, the true entity, the True, das Wahre, is a real entity, or Being itself, as revealed correctly and completely by coherent discourse having a meaning Logos. And this is what Hegel also calls Begriffconcept; a term that means for him except when, as in the writings of his youth and still occasionally in the Phenomenology, he says: The structure of thought, therefore, is determined by the structure of the Being that it reveals.
Thought is dialectical only to the extent that it correctly reveals the dialectic of Being that is and of the Real that exists. To be sure, pure and simple Being Sein does not have a threefold or dialectical structure; but the Logical — real, the Concept or the True — i. Hence one might be inclined to say that Being is dialectical only to the extent that it is revealed by Thought, that Thought is what gives Being its dialectical character.
But this formulation would be incorrect, or at least misleading. For in some sense the reverse is true for Hegel: Being can be revealed by Thought; there is a Thought in Being and of Being, only because Being is dialectical; i. The real dialectic of existing Being is, among other things, the revelation of the Real and of Being by Speech or Thought. And Speech and Thought themselves are dialectical only because, and to the extent that, they reveal or describe the dialectic of Being and of the Real.
As soon as the revealing description is correct, it can be said that ordo et connexio idearum idem est ac ordo et connexio rerum ; for the order and the connection of the real are, according to Hegel, dialectical. Here is what Hegel says, for example, in the Preface to the Phenomenology:. Just like ordinary philosophic knowledge, it is a self-knowledge. But it is a complete and adequate self-knowledge — that is, it is true in the strong sense of the word.
For real Being existing as Nature is what produces Man who reveals that Nature and himself by speaking of it. And thus it finally attains its end, which is the adequate and complete understanding of itself — i.
What exists in reality, as soon as there is a Reality of which one speaks — and since we in fact speak of reality, there can be for us only Reality of which one speaks what exists in reality, I say, is the Subject that knows the Object, or, what is the same thing, the Object known by the Subject.
Taken in this sense, Begriff signifies a particular real entity or a real aspect of being, revealed by the meaning of a word — i. But these two aspects are inseparable and complementary, and it is of little importance to know which of the two must be called Wissen or Begriff in the common senseand which Gegenstand. What is of importance is that in the Truth-there is perfect coincidence of the Begriff and the Gegenstand, and that — in the Truth — Knowledge is purely passive adequation to essential-Reality.
This, at least, is what Hegel says in the Introduction to the Phenomenology: But if by concept we mean the essential reality of the In-itself An-sich of the object, and by object, on the other hand, we understand the object [taken] as object, namely, as it is for another [i.
It is easily seen that both [expressions signify] the same thing. By omitting these latter, we attain [the possibility] of viewing the thing as it is in and for itself. Now, any addition Zutat [coming] from us becomes superfluous not only in kojece sense nach dieser Seite that [the] concept and the] object, the standard and what is to be verified, are present vorhanden in the Consciousness Bewusstsein itself [which we, as philosophers, study in the Phenomenology ]; but we are also spared the effort of comparing the two and of verifying in the strict sense, so that — since [studied] Consciousness verifies itself — in this respect too, only pure contemplation Zusehen is left for us to do.
The naive man, the vulgar scientist, even the pre-Hegelian philosopher — each in his way opposes himself koueve the Real and deforms it by opposing, his own means of action and methods of thought to it.
The Wise Man, on the contrary, is fully and definitively reconciled with everything that is: His role is that of a perfectly flat and indefinitely extended mirror: Hegel looks at the Real and describes what he sees, everything that he sees, and nothing but what he sees. And that is what Hegel says in the Introduction to the Phenomenology:. The latter is carried out by a Subject who pretends to be independent of the Object, and it is supposed to reveal the Object which exists hefel of the Subject.
Now in actual fact the experience is had by a man who lives within Nature and is indissolubly bound to it, but is also opposed to it and wants to transform it: That is why scientific knowledge is never absolutely passive, nor purely contemplative and descriptive. Scientific experience perturbs the Object because of the active intervention of the Subject, who applies to the Object a method of investigation hgel is his own and to which nothing in the Object itself corresponds.
What it reveals, therefore, is neither the Object taken independently of the Subject, nor the Subject taken independently of the Object, but only the result of the interaction of the two or, if you that interaction itself. However, scientific experience and knowledge are concerned with the Object as independent of and isolated from the Subject.
Introduction to the Reading of Hegel by Alexandre Kojeve
Hence they do not find what they are looking for; they do not give what hegeel promise, for they do not correctly reveal or describe what the Real is for them.
Now, for vulgar science, this real is supposed to be independent of the thought which describes it. Hence scientific thought does not attain its truth; there is no scientific truth in the strong and proper sense of the term. Scientific experience is thus only a pseudo-experience. And it kojeeve be otherwise, for vulgar science is in fact concerned not with the concrete real, but with an abstraction.
To the extent that the scientist thinks or knows his object, what really and concretely exists is the entirety of the Object known by the Subject or of the Subject knowing the Object. The isolated Object is but an abstraction, and that is why koieve has no fixed and stable continuity Bestehen and is perpetually deformed or perturbed. Therefore it cannot serve as a basis for a Truth, which by definition is universally and eternally valid. Hegelian experience is a different story: That is why, when this experience is described verbally, it kojevr a ,ojeve in the strong sense of the term.
The concrete Real of which we s peak is both Real revealed by a discourse, and Discourse revealing a real. And the Hegelian experience is related neither to the Real nor to Discourse taken uegel, but to their indissoluble unity. And since it is itself a revealing Discourse, it is itself an aspect of the concrete Real which it describes.
It therefore brings in nothing from outside, and the thought or the discourse which is born from it is not a reflection on the Real: Hegel’s method, then, is not at all dialectical, and Dialectic for him is quite different from a method of thought or exposition.
And we can even say that, in a certain way, Hegel was the first to abandon Dialectic as hegl philosophic method. He was, at least, the first to do so voluntarily and with full knowledge of what he was doing. The dialectical method was consciously and systematically used for the first time by Socrates-Plato. But in fact it is as old as philosophy itself.
Alexandre Kojève (1902—1968)
For the dialectical method is nothing but the method of dialogue — that is, of discussion. Everything seems to indicate that Science was born in the form of Myth.
A Myth is a theory — that is, a discursive revelation of the real. Of course, it is supposed to be in agreement with the given kojege.
But in fact, it always goes beyond its givens, and once beyond them, it only has to be coherent — i. Then, by chance, the man who has an opinion, or who has created or adopted yegel myth, comes up against a different myth or a contrary opinion. This man will first try to get rid of it: But it can happen and we know that kkjeve actually did happen one day, somewhere that the man begins to discuss with his adversary. To this end he speaks with his adversary, he engages in a dialogue with him: And it is by becoming a dialectician that the man of myth or opinion becomes a scientist or a philosopher.
In Plato and probably already in Socrates all this became conscious. If Plato has Socrates say that not the trees, but only the men in the city can teach him something, it is because he understood that, starting from false or true myth and opinion, one can attain science and truth only by way of discussion — that is, by way of dialogue or dialectic. In fine, according to Socrates-Plato, it is from the collision of diverse and adverse opinions that the spark of the one and the only truth is finally struck.
But this latter is still just one opinion among many others. It is a new thesis that will find or arouse a new anti-thesis, in order to associate itself with it by negating i. In philosophy or science born from discussion — that is, in dialectical or synthetic truth which realises the Good in man by verbally revealing the One — Whole — the intermediate theses, antitheses, and syntheses are aufgehoben, as Hegel will later say.
Secondly, they are also preserved or safeguarded with respect to whatever is essential or universal in them — that is, with respect to what in each of them reveals one of the manifold aspects of the total and single reality.
But if dialectic finally attains the adequation of discursive thought to Reality and Being, nothing in Reality and Being corresponds to dialectic.
The hgeel movement is a movement hegeo human thought and discourse, but the reality itself which one thinks and of which one talks is in no way dialectical. Dialectic is but a method of philosophic research and exposition. And we see, by the way, that the method is dialectical only because it implies a negative or negating element: There is truth properly so-called — that is, scientific or philosophic truth, or better, dialectical or synthetical truth — only where there has been discussion or dialogue — that is, antithesis negating a thesis.
In Plato, the dialectical method is still quite close to its historical origins the sophistic discussions.
In his writings we are dealing with genuine dialogues, in which the thesis koeve the antithesis are presented by different persons Socrates generally jegel the antithesis of all theses asserted by his interlocutors or expressed successively by one of them.
And as for the synthesis, it is generally the jegel who must make it — the auditor who is the philosopher properly so-called: Plato himself or that disciple who is capable of understanding him. In Aristotle the dialectical method is less apparent than in Plato. But it continues to be applied. It becomes the aporetic method: Like all opinion, the Myth arises spontaneously and is accepted or rejected in the same way. God alone spoke, while man was content to listen, to understand, and to transcribe and to do this far from the city, on the top of a mountain, and so on.
Such was the case of Saint Augustine.