I don't get it

[Anonymous No.17910186]

I literally don't get it, after reading it for a while I started to feel this is some kind of german shitpost and we didn't even realize
I feel like a brainlet, I want to burn this shit and never read again
What should I read to get it? How do I understand it?

[Anonymous No.17910208]

>>17910186
Read Philosophy of History first. Also try some secondary material. Hegel isn’t hard after you get through the language.

[Anonymous No.17910213]

>>17910186
Start again, from the beginning

[Anonymous No.17910217]

Read schoopy instead like a smart person

[Anonymous No.17910221]

>>17910208
Don't listen to this oseud. Hegel is hard. Prepare to be reading him for years to come and still developing your understanding if you're serious about it.

[Anonymous No.17910239]

>>17910221
>Prepare to be reading him for years to come and still developing your understanding
Daily reminder that whenever people give advice like this about a philosopher, it is a sure sign that philosopher is a charlatan.

[Anonymous No.17910244]

>>17910239
You don't want philosophy, you want self-help

[Anonymous No.17910251]

>>17910244
No, my life is fine. Hegel is genuinely rubbish. I would personally recommend Aristotle over him (and no, not for "self-help")

[Anonymous No.17910252]

>>17910186
OP, you can't understand Hegel because it is a giant shitpost. Don't listen >>17910221 or you will spend 15 years and think you finally understand him but your interpretation will be wildly different from other people that spent the same amount of effort to understand him.

Proposition: Hegel's writings are a giant shitpost.

Answer: If it's common for people educated on the subject to reach wildly different conclusions from the same source material no conclusions can be drawn from it and therefore Hegel's writings are a giant shitpost. Q.E.D.

[Anonymous No.17910253]

>>17910239
daily reminder that whenever people give advice like this about hegel it is a sure sign that person is a charlatan.

[Anonymous No.17910269]

>>17910251
you don't understand Aristotle either, just enough to get some self-gratifying glimpse of insight at most. What I said about Hegel being difficult and a long journey applies to any real philosopher.

[Anonymous No.17910279]

the Finnegans Wake of philosophy

[Anonymous No.17910292]

>>17910269
Nope, Aristotle's major arguments and assertions can be easily summed up, whereas Hegel's cannot, because Aristotle was not a charlatan.
>y-you just d-didn't understand Aristotle either!1
Yeah, try harder.

[Anonymous No.17910311]

>>17910292
aristotle is largely irrelevant while heggy shapes the discourse even today

[Anonymous No.17910313]

>>17910292
>implying a summary of philosophy is any philosophy at all
you got filtered by the phenomenology and you still have the gall to tell others you find Hegel easy lmao. Well you got some ready-made explanations from some "secondary materials" on Hegel so that gives you enough knowledge to shitpost on /lit/ about it.

[Anonymous No.17910317]

>>17910311
>aristotle is largely irrelevant
Lol

[Anonymous No.17910326]

>>17910313
>you got filtered by the phenomenology and you still have the gall to tell others you find Hegel easy lmao
It’s not me(>>17910208)saying Hegel is irrelevant.

[Anonymous No.17910330]

>>17910317
unless you live in a monastery in the middle ages, yes

[Anonymous No.17910333]

>>17910330
Aristotle is still studied today.

[Anonymous No.17910339]

>>17910333
They are wasting their time because Aristotle has already been summed up

[Anonymous No.17910348]

>>17910339
Pleb mindset

[Anonymous No.17910361]

Serious question, if I've read Kant's first two Critiques and I'm still not convinced that the fundamentals of his transcendental idealism are even valid, let's say in contrast to say Humean skepticism or even realism, is there any reason for me to treat Hegel seriously? Hegel is basically reliant on Kant's foundations and criticism isn't he, even though he alters a few aspects?

[Anonymous No.17910379]

>>17910361
Why do you need to be absolutely convinced to continue your study? It's not like you're gonna find anything much more convincingly valid beyond Kant and Hegel (their style of argumentation) that is so expansive in scope. It's a choice between that, logical formalism, or pure feels.

[Anonymous No.17910396]

>>17910379
>It's a choice between that, logical formalism, or pure feels.
Aristotelianism is not pure feels, no more so than transcendental or absolute idealism at least (because they all rest on their "assumptions" about reality). As for why, because I don't want to waste my time with things that are basically just complicated and tiresome explanations of a fictional system.

[Anonymous No.17910435]

>>17910396
Funny how you assumed I was accusing Aristotle of being feels. Aristotle isn't bad at all and Kant and Hegel are basically operating at that level in their argumentation but with different formulation, that's what I meant. I think there is a value in the Germans because of the historical context they were writing in. It's basically the modern era. They are articulated the problems of philosophy on our terms and I'm not sure that you can get the same thing by simply going back to Aristotle even if it may seem easier to understand initially. You have to develop the Greek thought or you just end up being a scholar of ancients. I think whichever way you go you end up having to retread idealist ground at some point to resolve those tensions. But if you absolutely feel it's a waste of time then no one's making you read it. You can keep studying Aristotle and building from that base if you feel like it.

[Anonymous No.17910480]

>>17910435
The thing is, there is so much in Aristotle's work that was never refuted to a standard that I've deemed to be valid. Which is to say, there is so much of it that stands on its own without need of being "developed." Most philosophers I've read after Aristotle, the ones that mostly discounted him in the respects that matter to me (including Kant, and Hegel it seems), seem to discount him on a basis that seems intellectually dishonest. The further into the future of philosophy I come, the more displeased I feel reading the "refutations" of the newer philosophers, because there is a perpetual air of bad faith lingering throughout their writings. It's most obvious when you directly contrast them with, again using Aristotle, Aristotle's own argumentation rather than just relying on the modern philosopher's representation of Aristotle. There are some challenges that are somewhat legitimate, like Hume's, but they're not actually breaking Aristotle's philosophy where it matters, they're just questioning the basis of certain axioms (which, again upon further investigation, does not really seem like a valid axiom to question all things considered). You either establish axiomatic foundations or you rest in eternal skepticism. So there is little difference in validity (from a purely skeptical standpoint) between Aristotelian realism and the German idealisms.

[Anonymous No.17910593]

>>17910480
(Not him)
Since we're talking about Aristotle and Hegel, it's important to bring up logic. Aristotle is the father of logic that's been used ever since, and that's mostly fine, but it doesn't really explain why things are. Hegel's logic is far beyond all that, explaining the nature and (shall we say) teleology of things. Formal logic only plays a 'primitive' part (through understanding) in his logic.
Besides, you can name almost any philosopher and say that they were unrefuted at, at least, one thing. Aristotle is one of, if not the most influential people in all of history, but that doesn't make him any more right than, let's say, Spinoza. Many, many things he said where straight up wrong. Hegel's (and/or Kant's) system of philosophy is the biggest, most complex, system that truly tries to explain how things work (and that's a cool thing about Hegel: he doesn't explain things like 'such and such depends on such and such and is therefore...', but asserts 'universal' statements which cut deep to the point).
Of course that doesn't, and really shouldn't, disregard other philosophers. One of my favorites is Bataille, and you can easily take his and Hegel's philosophy together (I do it mainly in the theological sense).

[Anonymous No.17910661]

>>17910480
You are looking at it without historical context. Plato was "refuted" by Nominalism. Aristotle was "refuted" by the Scientific Revolution. Of course the Greeks were and are still widely read, but now being used exclusively as a springboard for new ideas, rather than truth in and of themselves. No one philosopher took apart their arguments. History simply arrived at different belief systems. There is a straight line from William of Ockham to Hegel. In fact the work of Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Goethe, and Hegel is of as much significance to the modern age as Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle were to the Greeks. The Germans are the philosophers that history will be basing itself on for the next millennium.

[Anonymous No.17910711]

>>17910480
As far as arguments of bad faith go, it's hard to get worse than calling someone a charlatan because you can't be arsed to understand their system. Not saying you did that here because I'm not tracking who is who in this thread but Hegel gets that all the time. As for Aristotle, Hegel praised him up and down in the History of Philosophy but because he wanted to create a more organic system that means he was treating Aristotle im bad faith to you. You have to admit that if countless thinkers through the ages find fault with Aristotle then there has to be, in all its virtue, something that is lacking or not quite adequately expressed there. There's not a historical conspiracy against Aristsotle that all his critics are a part of. And that's something I am fair enough to apply to Hegel also. The fact that he got so much shit from all sides, even if a lot of is bad faith shit flinging, is indicative of his own inadequacy that has to be overcome at some point in the future if any progress will ever be made at all.

[Anonymous No.17910758]

>just spend the best years of your life deciphering it bro
with the platonists you get a clear understanding of their meaning from a very first reading. Each time you come back to them, your understanding deepens and solidifies. The 'continentals' from Hegel onward get ifetimes of hard work devoted to them with even the most basic consensus on their work shifting radically from decade to decade. Expecting anyone with a sane mind to wager their body and intellect on the promise of some vague understanding at the end of the tunnel? Seem like a trick to me, look at Hegel scholars today if you want affirmation: do these people look or sound like they have unique insight into the nature of reality? Give me a fucking break.

[Anonymous No.17910966]

HOW DOES HE GROUND THE ABSOLUTE? IM NOT GONNA TAKE HE GROUNDS IT IN ITSELF AS AN ANSWER

[Anonymous No.17911343]

>the average Hegel-scholar

[Anonymous No.17911346]

>>17910186
>we
There is no "we" faggot

[Anonymous No.17911349]

>ah, the enlightened ones!

[Anonymous No.17911352]

>>17910966
He grounds the absolute in the recollected process of arriving at the absolute.

[Anonymous No.17911562]

>>17911352
how is that not already part of the absolute?!

[Anonymous No.17911573]

>>17911343
kek he has to be memeing

[Anonymous No.17911784]

>>17911562
it's not "part" of the absolute. The Absolute [for hegel] is not simply something for knowing to 'arrive at' - it IS the whole process by which knowing comes to arrive at it, precisely because [for Hegel] the Absolute is not just substance [an ineffable transcendent 'thing' or 'principle' out there somewhere] but subject [a universal "I"]. the absolute is not something 'out there' which you have to find. the absolute is with you, it is already present, as it were 'implicitly', insofar as you 'know' anything at all. for a human being to know the absolute IS nothing other than the absolute knowing itself. this is why [for hegel] absolute knowing isn't something like a privileged insight which certain people had in the past, or some primordial mystic knowledge - it is the 'absolute', universal, scientific point of view which has been arrived at in the course of human history, something which has been built collectively within human social practice and existence, in art, religion, and ultimately philosophical science. Consequently, to know the absolute is for the absolute to know itself, to recollect the path of historical development which made its own 'absolute knowing' possible at all. that is what the Phenomenology is.

[Anonymous No.17911810]

seriously just read Frederick Beiser's "Hegel" if you don't get it, he makes it as simple as it possibly can be

[Anonymous No.17911872]

>>17911784
Based
Don't overthink it lads

[Anonymous No.17911875]

It's just hero's journey but replace consciousness with the hero.

[Anonymous No.17911886]

>>17910186
just read someone elses notes, there's literally no value in the original text. Hegel was a shit writer.

[Anonymous No.17911898]

>>17910326
Give us a summary of Hegel's key concepts

[Anonymous No.17911929]

>>17910711
>The fact that he got so much shit from all sides, even if a lot of is bad faith shit flinging, is indicative of his own inadequacy that has to be overcome at some point in the future if any progress will ever be made at all.
Apparently on hegels deathbed he complained that "only one man understood me, and he did it wrong" (this is probably false but a nice anecdote)
I agree he's a pain to read but the challenge is rewarding. PoS is meant to be read more than once, misunderstanding it at first is necessary to the development of understanding. Contradiction and the process of understanding are the core of his philosophy. He could have not written in a simpler way because he did not have the scientific understanding of the unconscious that came a hundred years later, and his writing style lends to the fact that his philosophy can't be simplified; one cannot just read the last chapter Absolute Knowledge. The "progress" you speak of is not what he aimed for and had been wrestled with since every major philosopher since. To think that this system can be reduced to a simple conclusion or progression is to misunderstand it. His "inadequacy" only comes from him flying too close to the sun, because his system is whole but not based on first principles, thus emphasizing the importance of dialectical logic to perception and understanding.

[Anonymous No.17912129]

just read the better german idealist

[Anonymous No.17912283]

>>17910239
lol, do am*ric*ns really?

[Anonymous No.17912319]

>>17911784
>it IS the whole process by which knowing comes to arrive at it
>He grounds the absolute in the recollected process of arriving at the absolute
so if it is the process, and he grounds it in the process, he grounds it in itself

[Anonymous No.17912372]

>>17910252
to be fair, a shitpost usually leads to a single conclusion while Hegel leads to varied conclusions

[Anonymous No.17912373]

I'm reading Schopenhauer rn after Kant and although I was looking forward to read Fichte, Schelling, Hegel the examples he puts forth makes them sound like charlatans. It seems like they just ignored Kant and Schelling seems more like a poet than a philosopher. But maybe he was just strawmanning.

[Anonymous No.17912389]

>>17910186
Look at this physiognomy, there is zero chance this man can be trusted. The main thing to do with Hegel is post his racist quotes about Africans to make Marxists uncomfortable

[Anonymous No.17912664]

>>17910361
Read Gustavo Bueno

[Anonymous No.17912670]

>>17911886
He has some of the most beautiful prose I've ever read, I don't know what you're talking about.

[Anonymous No.17912700]

>>17910186
check out half hour hegel on youtube

[Anonymous No.17912705]

>>17910239
Yes. It happened to me, once you are so invested in understanding a philosopher and expend your time only on him, you have no choice but to become a follower. I read Heidegger for a long time and don't feel it was worth it. Play music, compose poetry, join religion, those are things that have actual value.

[Anonymous No.17912711]

>>17912373
>the examples he puts forth makes them sound like charlatans
Because he was bitter and jealous.

[Anonymous No.17912740]

>>17912705
Spend* sorry

[Anonymous No.17912788]

Hegel’s philosophy is extremely interesting, but I personally don’t find his overarching discourse on Geist all too useful outside of rumination. It is certainly not worth the effort one would need to expend plowing through this book outside of a classroom setting. I’m lucky I was able to take a course on Kant and Hegel in college, but god fucking damn was it difficult.

Spend effort in the introduction and really try to grasp the nuances of Hegel’s philosophy of dialectic, or Audheben. (Thesis, Antithesis, Sublation). From there, pick and choose where in the “History of Geist” you want to hone in, but it wouldn’t be terrible to use a lot of secondary material. The journey from “Sense-Certainty” to “Absolute Knowing” is interesting, but not all that rewarding when filtered through Hegel’s muddled language. Remember, Hegel was supremely interested in paganism and archaism, meaning that there’s a lot of “ooo deep” shit in his work.

[Anonymous No.17912823]

>>17910208
I did that and I still got filtered by pos
The language is so fucking different

[Anonymous No.17913558]

>>17912389
He supported the haitian revolution when most of his contemporaries didn't
Marxists don't understand him either way who cares

[Anonymous No.17913567]

>>17910186
Kojeve

[Anonymous No.17913588]

>>17912788
>Hegel’s philosophy is extremely interesting
You're a big scholar

[Anonymous No.17913668]

>>17910221
This is accurate.

People jumping directly into the Phenomenology of Spirit is a meme born of mid-century French dilettantism elevating Hegel to the status of "big name guy everyone is supposed to know and be reacting against," mostly by gleaning this from what the Germans were saying, and then several decades of American graduate students and eventually libshit post-leftist twinks on twitter wanting some of the prestige of the mid-century French to rub off on them. It's one big game of telephone.

PoS is a fun and slightly bewildering read and no one has ever succeeded in pinning down Hegel's system. Hegelian dialectics is a way of thinking, one that many people learn through good left-Hegelian Marxists like Adorno, Lenin, and Lukacs, rather than through Hegel directly, and they then read this left-Hegelianism onto Hegel. If you want that demi-Marxist, demi-Hegelian "soft Hegelian" understanding of Hegel that someone like Zizek has, just read the PoS to the best of your ability with a secondary source or two (in other words, read Taylor's Hegel [500pp~] and Beiser's Hegel [200-250pp~]), read Kolakowski's Main Currents of Marxism (volume 1, which covers Fichte and Hegel, the Yonug Hegelians, and Marx and early Marxism), and then familiarise yourself with some of the meme 20th century authors like Kojeve (aka "master slave dialectic master slave dialectic look at me I know about the master slave dialectic that was actually a really minor part of PoS") and Hippolyte (aka "PoS is a bildungsroman PoS is a bildungsroman look at me I can say PoS is a bildungsroman on twitter").

If you actually want to understand Hegel, do what >>17910221 said and set him (and others like Kant, Fichte, and Schelling) up as north stars to sail by until you actually understand them. Take some of the load off yourself by recognising ahead of time that, as Kolakowski says openly in the first chapter of Main Currents, nobody has ever fully and finally "understood" the irreducibly ambiguous Phenomenology of Spirit. But you should still "get" it if you study hard. Take Kant's Critique of Pure Reason as your litmus test, since that is a genuinely "easy" text for anyone with philosophical sea legs, just one that requires work. If you read the CPR right now and feel like it's an impenetrable wall of complexity, then you manifestly need to study more. If that suggestion offends you, perhaps philosophy isn't for you. CPR is objectively easy, so this is like going to the gym, trying to squat 200lbs and saying "this is impossible, nobody could do this!" Yeah, not on your first day you fucking pussy, but 200lbs is actually quite low, and PoS-level weight isn't even that bad either.

Stop using twitter, stop listening to wealthy post-leftist poseurs whose yuppie parents killed leftism, read philosophy for genuine understanding and view confusion as a fun puzzle to be overcome. PoS is a minor text in the history of philosophy. Stop fetishising it.

[Anonymous No.17913793]

>>17913668
fucking kek. All I want is a mystic path to follow, not obscuritanism, not new-ageism, but a genuine path to the absolute. Becoming a hunchback insufferable faggot is not it. I don't want to be stuck with aestheticism, fideism or whatever other cope there is around.

[Anonymous No.17914136]

>>17913668
It seems like all of this swirls around PoS, but is there any good secondary lit on SoL?

[Anonymous No.17915174]

>>17910186
Just read Kojeve's 'intro to the reading of Hegel'.
Will never understand why people just purchase the most difficult philosophical texts and expect to jump into them and understand it all without any external study or sources.

[Anonymous No.17915181]

>>17913668
So what are the 1000 lb squats?

[Anonymous No.17915186]

>>17913793
>I shouldn't have to work towards knowledge
>I shouldn't have to tarry with the negative
fucking kek indeed

[Anonymous No.17916157]

>>17910186
True Hegel scholars do open work groups in their yellowed apartments filled with books and teach Hegels Logic to guys without a highschool diploma, accountants, knife salesmen, relapsing alcoholics and homeless junkies--all a kind of vino--who just all happened to have nothing better to do at that moment.

Hegel, Novalis, Adorno

[Anonymous No.17916247]

>>17913668
first good post i've seen today, well done

[Anonymous No.17916410]

>>17916157
Based

[Anonymous No.17916430]

>>17913668
Good post, but adorno was an anti hegelian, lenin isn't really worth reading unless you wanna larp, and zizek is a harder hegelian than you think; I wouldn't say he is demi marxist and makes a lot of important hegelian criticisms against marx and marxism.
Kojeve is easy and great so far, haven't read the others but I don't think kant is needed here to be quite honest
>t. Never read a word of kant outside of his wiki articles and secondary sources

[Anonymous No.17917221]

>>17913588
For you.

[Anonymous No.17917382]

It's because he was bad at communicating, not your fault. Read introductory books

[Anonymous No.17918402]

>>17910966
How does your pre-existence ground itself? By imagining your existence and what would it be without it.

[Anonymous No.17918575]

>>17910186
daily i dont get it thread