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A Commentary to Hegel’s Science of Logic
Hegel is regarded as the pinnacle of German idealism and his work has undergone an enormous revival since 1975. In this book, David Gray Carlson presents a systematic interpretation of Hegel's 'The Science of Logic', a work largely overlooked, through a system of accessible diagrams, identifying and explicating each of Hegel's logical derivations.
- GenresPhilosophy
645 pages, Hardcover
First published January 5, 2007
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January 20, 2014
Ok, here's the deal. During the time I spend in my (first) reading of the Logic, I slowly drifted away from this book and sought other supplements gleaned from my ever-growing Hegel library. This book is good in a number of respects. First of all, it emphasizes more recent approaches to Hegel (the author, for instance, agrees with Zizek's assertion of a 'silent fourth' in the method). There are numerous footnotes that would probably make for a pretty good book in itself. In short, the author appears to be extremely knowledgeable in regards to the Hegelian literature. And he has a number of fascinating insights and remarks.
Now, the problems: First of all, I find the charts in the book to be little more than distracting. And this becomes quite the problem when he starts writing sentences like this (as example): 7 is the in-itself of 3 which is the mediation of 4,5,6 blah blah blah. I would have much preferred for him to just use the damn terms instead of making me constantly flip back and forth to see what the numbers referred to. All in all, I think his attempts at times to make the Logic more 'comprehensible' ended up muddying the waters by translating the Hegelian terms into his own formatting. I am much more familiar and accustomed to the Hegelian terms. For several sections at a time I would just find help elsewhere (once again, I would like to recommend Robert Wallace's book--or Burbidge or Houlgate). Carlson isn't much help in terms of Ground, for instance. In fact, I found him much more helpful and effective in The Doctrine of Being and the Doctrine of the Concept. In short, be sure to supplement him with help from elsewhere in your work on Essence.
But, in general, I would recommend it. But it's not the first thing I would recommend. And the price doesn't help any either.
Now, the problems: First of all, I find the charts in the book to be little more than distracting. And this becomes quite the problem when he starts writing sentences like this (as example): 7 is the in-itself of 3 which is the mediation of 4,5,6 blah blah blah. I would have much preferred for him to just use the damn terms instead of making me constantly flip back and forth to see what the numbers referred to. All in all, I think his attempts at times to make the Logic more 'comprehensible' ended up muddying the waters by translating the Hegelian terms into his own formatting. I am much more familiar and accustomed to the Hegelian terms. For several sections at a time I would just find help elsewhere (once again, I would like to recommend Robert Wallace's book--or Burbidge or Houlgate). Carlson isn't much help in terms of Ground, for instance. In fact, I found him much more helpful and effective in The Doctrine of Being and the Doctrine of the Concept. In short, be sure to supplement him with help from elsewhere in your work on Essence.
But, in general, I would recommend it. But it's not the first thing I would recommend. And the price doesn't help any either.
Displaying 1 of 1 review