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Hegel
This is a major and comprehensive study of the philosophy of Hegel, his place in the history of ideas, and his continuing relevance and importance. Professor Taylor relates Hegel to the earlier history of philosophy and, more particularly, to the central intellectual and spiritual issues of his own time. He engages with Hegel sympathetically, on Hegel's own terms and, as the subject demands, in detail. This important book is now reissued with a fresh new cover.
596 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1975
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Charles Margrave Taylor
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Charles Taylor
Charles Taylor, Journalist, Film critic
Charles Margrave Taylor CC GOQ FBA FRSC is a Canadian philosopher, and professor emeritus at McGill University. He is best known for his contributions to political philosophy, the philosophy of social science, history of philosophy and intellectual history. This work has earned him the prestigious Kyoto Prize, the Templeton Prize, the Berggruen Prize for Philosophy, and the John W. Kluge Prize, in addition to widespread esteem among philosophers. (Source: Wikipedia)
Other authors with this name:
Charles Taylor
Charles Taylor, Journalist, Film critic
Charles Margrave Taylor CC GOQ FBA FRSC is a Canadian philosopher, and professor emeritus at McGill University. He is best known for his contributions to political philosophy, the philosophy of social science, history of philosophy and intellectual history. This work has earned him the prestigious Kyoto Prize, the Templeton Prize, the Berggruen Prize for Philosophy, and the John W. Kluge Prize, in addition to widespread esteem among philosophers. (Source: Wikipedia)
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January 7, 2012
The Enlightenment Context
These thinkers (Descartes, Bacon, Hobbes) held to an atomistic view of man and society. They rejected the medieval worldview of "final causes" (4). The world was no longer seen as "symbol manifesting the rhythm of the divine" (5).
Modernity's epistemology is that of a "self-defining subject" (7).
First of all this implies a "control over things" (8). For example, nature/matter is now seen as "dead matter," able to be manipulated by the elite (Taylor does not draw this out but this is arguably the simplest definition of magic).
With a self-defining subject there comes a new definition of freedom (9).
There came a dis-enchanting, or objectivifying of the world. Modern understandings of meaning and purpose apply exclusively to the thought and actions of the subject" (9).
Most deleteriously, man himself was seen as an object--was objectified.
This hard Enlightenment anthropology will itself break down (almost immediately). Some couldn't live without a God; these are the mild Deists. Others took the epistemology consistently and became radical materialists.
The German Romantic Counter-attack
Post-Reformation Germany never experienced the same "church versus state" problems that France did. Thus, German's religious expression to the Enlightenment was formed differently: pietism. Pietism stressed a heart-felt religious experience of the soul's meeting with Christ (11). There followed a denigration of dogma and confessional status. Like with the Enlightenment itself, the reaction in Germany went along two paths.
Sturm und Drang
The main counter-attack was led by Romantic Johann Herder. Herder dislikes the Enlightenment's objectification of man, and he proposes an alternative anthropology: expressivism (13). Human life and human activity are seen as expressions.
Taylor frames his book in order of several of Hegel's main works. He does an excellent job outlining difficult terminology and highlighting key points which will serve as hermeneutical loci later.
Self-Positing Spirit
This introduces Hegel's "identity of difference and identity." Starting slowly, following Taylor, here is what I think he means. Hegel is trying to overcome the Kantian duality. Hegel wants to overcome this with his notion of "overcoming oppositions." Therefore, identity cannot sustain itself on its own, but posits an opposition, but also a particularly intimate one (80). In short, Hegel married modern expression with Aristotle's self-realizing form (81).
Following this was Hegel's other point: the subject, and all his functions, however spiritual, were necessarily embodied (82-83).
The Contradiction Arises
Contrary to mindless right-wing bloggers, Hegel did not form the "dialectic" in the following way: we posit a thesis (traditional community), then we negate it (cultural marxism), which allows for the "synthesis" (our pre-planned solution all along). Here is what Hegel actually meant: there is reality, but the very structure of reality already contains a contradiction. The subject then must overcome that contradiction.
Taylor notes, "In order to be at all as a conscious being, the subject must be embodied in life; but in order to realize the perfection of consciousness it must fight and overcome the natural bent of life as a limit. The conditions of its existence are in conflict with the demands of its perfection (86).
Taylor has much more to say but that will suffice for now. Of course, I radically disagree with Hegel's conclusions. That does not mean Hegel is value-less. On the contrary, one can see key Augustinian and Origenist points in his outlook.
Taylor seems to structure his discussion of Hegel along the following lines: Phenomenology of Geist is a sort of preparatory stage for the Logic. At the end of the last discussion, Hegel said that Spirit (Geist) comes to know himself, and that finite spirits are the vehicles of this self-knowledge. This is partly why Hegel says that Geist must be embodied.
We start off with an inadequate notion of the standard involved; but we also have some basicaly correct notions of what the standard must meet. However, we see the inadequacy of both when we try to realize it. Obviously, Hegel is simply following Plato on this point.
What if we are just arbitrarily positing some standard of knowledge? No big deal, for upon reflection we will find out that said standard is likely faulty and we will have to "re-think it." When we re-think it we get closer to the truth. Thus, "the test of knowledge is also its standard" (136).
Hegel ends this discussion with the suggestion that consciousness inevitably posits self-conscious, which will be taken up in the next chapter.
I'm skipping the section on "self-consciousness" because I really didn't understand it, and concerning the elements of Hegel still relevant today, this isn't one of them.
One thing I do appreciate about Hegel is that his worldview really is unified. His discussions on "ontology" (the study of essence) are directly connected to his politics and views on religion (and to show how "real-life" this really is: when Karl Marx read Hegel he kept a few elements but mainly despised the man and his system. He negated Hegel--pun intended. Following his negation, Lenin, Stalin, and Mao took this negation of Hegel and murdered 200 million people. Philosophy really does matter).
In the Formation of Spirit Taylor notes that Hegel idealized the ancient Greek polis: he saw a complete unity between citizen and society (171). Unfortunately (or inevitably) this had to break down. Spirit cannot become universal if it is confined to the walls of one particular city. This is an important, if somewhat abstract point. I will develop it further in my final reflections on Hegel.
Taylor remarks, somewhat side-tracking the discussion, that sin is necessary for salvation in Hegel's view (174). Of course, as a Christian this is completely unacceptable, but it also shows my appreciation for Hegel. Hegel can be seen as the consistent high-point of a certain strand of Western thought. We saw the same type of thinking in Origen (for God to be Lord, there must be something for him to be Lord "over"), in a muted but present form in Augustine, and openly championed by some Reformed teachers today.
Essentially, what Hegel is saying is that men feel a basic attitude of alienation--their substance lies outside them and they can only overcome it by overcoming their particularity (179). Unfortunately, that is what Hegel calls a "contradiction."
This part of Hegel's Phenomenology is dealing heavily with social life, which I will cover in greater detail in the chapters on politics.
This next section of the book, and presumably the logical outflowing of Hegel's thought, deals with "manifest religion." I really don't want to spend a lot of time on this, partly because it is the most atrocious aspect of Hegel's thought, and partly because I want to get to the politics. However, Hegel is nothing if not consistent, and it is important to see how one section implies the next (which is exactly how his later Logic is set up). And as always, even when wrong Hegel has some excellent insights on the human dynamic.
Building on Hegel's premise that God/Geist/Spirit, which is the ultimate reality, must be embodied in history, it follows that one must ask in what manner is it embodied? One of the most fundamental modes, Hegel posits, is in religion (197). Briefly stated, Hegel sees each epoch in human history as manifesting religion, but always in a contradictory way. The Greeks were able to apprehend "the universal," but they could only do so in a finite and limited way (and thus the infinite/finite contradiction). This contradiction is not a bad thing, though, for it opened up the possibility of the Christian religion (with a detour through the Hebrews). Hegel sees the ultimate religious expression in the Incarnation.
What do we make of this?
Like anything Hegel says, much of the surface-level language is quite good, but once you get beyond that you see the truly bizarre theology. Hegel has a strong emphasis on community and will say that is where the true Christian expression is found. From our perspective, this sounds a lot like saying Christ is found in the church, and that is true. Unfortunately, Hegel was not using that in the same way we are.
At this point in the narrative we are beginning the discussion of Hegel's two-volume Logic. While this is the hardest of his works to understand (and I certainly don't understand them beyond a fourth-grade level), it will be easy to discuss them. His main points are clear and tied together.
A Dialectic of Categories
When one is studying reality, Hegel says, one can start anywhere in the system, for each facet is ultimately tied together (226). If we start with "Being" then our method will proceed dialectically. What he means by that is the very structure of reality has a contradiction, and in overcoming that contradiction Being moves forth to something else. Throughout the whole of this discussion, Hegel is starting from Kant and reworking the system along problems he sees in Kant.
To avoid confusion, and to silence the right-wing conspiracy bloggers, Hegel's idea of contradiction is this: he has a two-pronged argument, the first showing that a given category is indispensable, the second showing that it leads to a characterization of reality which is somehow impossible or incoherent (228).
In developing the above contradiction, Hegel assumes the Plotinian dialectic: a Something can only be defined by referent to another with which it is contrasted (236).
Hegel says a lot more on these topics, but I will not. Throughout Taylor's analysis he reveals interstesting facets of Hegel's thought, showing him to be a true heir of Augustine and Plotinus.
Most right-wing bloggers think that Hegel's view is the Illuminati finding its ultimate expression in world-government. Actually, what Hegel means is that communities become vehicles of the "Spirit." This can (and has) been taken in numerous ways. I see it as communities organically expressing a common spirit, common values (see Augustine, City of God Book 19.4).
Hegel is trying to overcome the dilemma that social life poses: per man's subjective life the important thing is freedom of spirit. However, man also lives in community and the norms of the community often bind his freedom of spirit (it is to Hegel's credit that he recognized this problem generations before Nietszche and the existentialists).
Hegel suggests the form man must attain is a social form (366). It is important to note that what Hegel means by "state" is much different than what Anglo-Americans mean by it. Hegel means the "politically organized community" (387). Let's explore these few sentences for a moment. Throughout his philosophy Hegel warns against "abstractions," by which he means taking an entity outside its network of relations. With regard to politics, if abstraction is bad then it necessarily follows that man's telos is in a community. Man comes into the world already in a network of relations.
Reason and History
Given Hegel's commitment about the fulfillment of spirit, it follows that communities grow. As seen above, Hegel's applies to history the problem of self-fulfillment. How does man realize the fulfillment of the Idea?
Jews: realization that God is pure, subjective Spirit. Ends up negating finite reality.
Greek: opposite of Jewish mentality. Harmonizes God with "natural expression." Ends up with idolatry. Greek polis is pariochial. Each state his its own God. A universal realization of spirit is thus impossible. Men were identified with Greek state. Democracy natural expression. There is a necessary contradiction within the Greek polis: only represents a part of finite reality.
Romans: Origin of the idea as "Person," bearer of "abstract right" (397).
Christianity: the finite subject and absolute spirit can be reconciled. The task of history is to make this reconciliation public--this is the Church.
Germans: they were to take it to the next stage.
The rest of European history is a working out these processes, a transformation of institutions. It is hear that we see feudalism, etc. At this point we need to correct a mistake about Hegel: Hegel is not saying that world history climaxes with Prussian Germany. There is no sensible way he could have believed that. Germany was weak and defeated when he wrote (it would have been interesting and perhaps more perceptive to say that Russia was the bearer of the World Spirit). Nonetheless, as Hegel notes and as his critics routinely miss, history did take an interesting turn in the 19th century and the force of ideas does not simply stop because the historian wants them to stop.
The Foundations of the Modern State
Monarchy as the Representative Individual: consistent with his earlier points, Hegel notes that there must be some way for the individual to retain his subjective right, yet at the same time freely and fully identify with the community (Staat). This happens by way of monarchy. Beneath the monarchy are Estates, who mediate the King to the people. Nowhere does Hegel mean representation according to our usage today. The King does not "represent" the will of the people, but through his kingly majesty allows the people to identify (399).
Interestingly, Taylor notes that the Reformation ended up desacralizing the political order, eventually seeing it as a "heap of objects" (401). This, of course, is the philosophy of nominalism.
The French Revolution: Political Terror
Hegel defines it as "absolute, unlimited freedom." Complete freedom means that outcome should be decided by me. Of course, since I am in society it is not decided by me alone. Therefore, complete freedom is decided by the strongest individual. This is the conclusion of indivdiualism ala Locke.
Charles Taylor is embarrassed by Hegel's rejection of the principles of the French Revolution. I think the reason is that if Hegel is right and one should view the Modern Narrative as a continuation of the French Revolution, then the only moral alternative is to reject said narrative. He notes (if not likes) Hegel's challenge to modernity: the modern ideology of equality and of total participation leads to a homogenization of society. This shakes men loose from their traditional communities but cannot replace them as a focus of identity" (414).
Translation: all natural societies organically flow from a unified belief system/ethnos (cf. Augustine, City of God, 19.4). Modernity is the negation of this. Without this unified system of belief, men cannot "connect" to one another. Thus, no real community. Thus, no real unity and society is held together by force (ala Hegel on Rome) and terror (ala Hegel on France).
Modernity is nominalism of politics.
Hegel's conclusion, which Taylor rejects, is a rationalized monarchy. Hegel was a monarchist but he was not a traditionalist, and for that reason he was not a conservative. He agreed with the older conservatives that society must be founded on authority, estates, and a strong monarch; Hegel, however, based these spheres, not on divine right or tradition, but on reason. In this sense Hegel stands firmly in the Enlightenment.
According to Hegel France is utterly lost in terms of a political future. England is better, but she is not far behind in spiritual rot, for England (like America today) is run riot with an excess on particular rights. And in this chaos of individualism, special interest groups backed by powerful elites have taken control (like America today).
Taylor notes that for Hegel,
"The only force which could cure this would be a strong monarchy like those late medieval kings which forced through the barons the rights of the universal. But the English have crucially weakened their monarchy; it is powerless before Parliament which is the cockpit of private interests (454).
I first found this line of reasoning from Fr. Raphael Johnson's take on Russian history. I guess Johnson got it from Hegel himself since he wrote his Master's thesis on Hegel.
Taylor continues to the conclusion,
Hence the vehicle by which rational constitution could best be introduced and made real was a powerful modernizing monarchy...Hegel had hopes for the future based on the climate of his times. Germany had been shocked into reform by the Napoleonic conquest. It consisted of societies founded on law in which principles of rational Enlightenment had already gone some way and seemed bound to go further. It had a Protestant political culture and hence could achieve a rational constitution unlike the benighted peoples of Latin Europe, and it was not too far gone in rot like England. It held to the monarchical principle and the monarchs retained some real power unlike England, and yet the societies were law societies (454-455).
This paragraph warrants some reflection:
Although I am a traditionalist, and Hegel is not, I agree that a modernizing monarchy is much preferred than unreflected claims to "Throne and Altar." Many monarchists today naively think that "restoring a king" will return the land to justice. Ironically, this tends to lead to the same problems that Republican government leads: you have the vision of a few determining the fate of the whole. Rather, a strong monarch who enforces Republican structures in the land, arising from the will of the ethnos (shades of Johann Herder), existing primarily to reign in the excesses of the free market, is one who is both authoritarian yet the people are still free.
I am not sure on Hegel's optimism for a Protestant Monarchy. I know that Germany saw as much, and even England can claim to be a "monarchy" in some vague watered-down sense (while we are at it, I actually encourage one to read the thoughtful positions by N. T. Wright and Oliver O'Donovan on monarchy). However, most Protestant political forces have been confessedly thoroughly anti-monarchist, and it is no surprise there are few Protestant Monarchies left. Happily, though, there are examples of good, Protestant monarchies.
While I disagree with founding a country on "the principles of Enlightenment," given that it was the other horn of the dialectic (the other being Augustinian Filioquist politics), I don't see that Hegel had much of an alternative choice. If Western history represented a dialectical clash after the Schism, then Hegel can't be faulted for simply living and thinking through his times (as we all do).
Interestingly, Hegel's vision sounds a lot like Putin's Russia: a strong leader wary of the excesses of the market and trying to create "intermediate spaces" to shelter the yeoman from predatory capitalism.
Conclusion
In many ways Taylor's book is essential. One has to know how Hegel is using terminology and Taylor is a reliable guide in that regard. Taylor cannot square himself with Hegel's politics, though, since Hegel is a rejection (negation?) of modernity.
These thinkers (Descartes, Bacon, Hobbes) held to an atomistic view of man and society. They rejected the medieval worldview of "final causes" (4). The world was no longer seen as "symbol manifesting the rhythm of the divine" (5).
Modernity's epistemology is that of a "self-defining subject" (7).
First of all this implies a "control over things" (8). For example, nature/matter is now seen as "dead matter," able to be manipulated by the elite (Taylor does not draw this out but this is arguably the simplest definition of magic).
With a self-defining subject there comes a new definition of freedom (9).
There came a dis-enchanting, or objectivifying of the world. Modern understandings of meaning and purpose apply exclusively to the thought and actions of the subject" (9).
Most deleteriously, man himself was seen as an object--was objectified.
This hard Enlightenment anthropology will itself break down (almost immediately). Some couldn't live without a God; these are the mild Deists. Others took the epistemology consistently and became radical materialists.
The German Romantic Counter-attack
Post-Reformation Germany never experienced the same "church versus state" problems that France did. Thus, German's religious expression to the Enlightenment was formed differently: pietism. Pietism stressed a heart-felt religious experience of the soul's meeting with Christ (11). There followed a denigration of dogma and confessional status. Like with the Enlightenment itself, the reaction in Germany went along two paths.
Sturm und Drang
The main counter-attack was led by Romantic Johann Herder. Herder dislikes the Enlightenment's objectification of man, and he proposes an alternative anthropology: expressivism (13). Human life and human activity are seen as expressions.
Taylor frames his book in order of several of Hegel's main works. He does an excellent job outlining difficult terminology and highlighting key points which will serve as hermeneutical loci later.
Self-Positing Spirit
This introduces Hegel's "identity of difference and identity." Starting slowly, following Taylor, here is what I think he means. Hegel is trying to overcome the Kantian duality. Hegel wants to overcome this with his notion of "overcoming oppositions." Therefore, identity cannot sustain itself on its own, but posits an opposition, but also a particularly intimate one (80). In short, Hegel married modern expression with Aristotle's self-realizing form (81).
Following this was Hegel's other point: the subject, and all his functions, however spiritual, were necessarily embodied (82-83).
The Contradiction Arises
Contrary to mindless right-wing bloggers, Hegel did not form the "dialectic" in the following way: we posit a thesis (traditional community), then we negate it (cultural marxism), which allows for the "synthesis" (our pre-planned solution all along). Here is what Hegel actually meant: there is reality, but the very structure of reality already contains a contradiction. The subject then must overcome that contradiction.
Taylor notes, "In order to be at all as a conscious being, the subject must be embodied in life; but in order to realize the perfection of consciousness it must fight and overcome the natural bent of life as a limit. The conditions of its existence are in conflict with the demands of its perfection (86).
Taylor has much more to say but that will suffice for now. Of course, I radically disagree with Hegel's conclusions. That does not mean Hegel is value-less. On the contrary, one can see key Augustinian and Origenist points in his outlook.
Taylor seems to structure his discussion of Hegel along the following lines: Phenomenology of Geist is a sort of preparatory stage for the Logic. At the end of the last discussion, Hegel said that Spirit (Geist) comes to know himself, and that finite spirits are the vehicles of this self-knowledge. This is partly why Hegel says that Geist must be embodied.
We start off with an inadequate notion of the standard involved; but we also have some basicaly correct notions of what the standard must meet. However, we see the inadequacy of both when we try to realize it. Obviously, Hegel is simply following Plato on this point.
What if we are just arbitrarily positing some standard of knowledge? No big deal, for upon reflection we will find out that said standard is likely faulty and we will have to "re-think it." When we re-think it we get closer to the truth. Thus, "the test of knowledge is also its standard" (136).
Hegel ends this discussion with the suggestion that consciousness inevitably posits self-conscious, which will be taken up in the next chapter.
I'm skipping the section on "self-consciousness" because I really didn't understand it, and concerning the elements of Hegel still relevant today, this isn't one of them.
One thing I do appreciate about Hegel is that his worldview really is unified. His discussions on "ontology" (the study of essence) are directly connected to his politics and views on religion (and to show how "real-life" this really is: when Karl Marx read Hegel he kept a few elements but mainly despised the man and his system. He negated Hegel--pun intended. Following his negation, Lenin, Stalin, and Mao took this negation of Hegel and murdered 200 million people. Philosophy really does matter).
In the Formation of Spirit Taylor notes that Hegel idealized the ancient Greek polis: he saw a complete unity between citizen and society (171). Unfortunately (or inevitably) this had to break down. Spirit cannot become universal if it is confined to the walls of one particular city. This is an important, if somewhat abstract point. I will develop it further in my final reflections on Hegel.
Taylor remarks, somewhat side-tracking the discussion, that sin is necessary for salvation in Hegel's view (174). Of course, as a Christian this is completely unacceptable, but it also shows my appreciation for Hegel. Hegel can be seen as the consistent high-point of a certain strand of Western thought. We saw the same type of thinking in Origen (for God to be Lord, there must be something for him to be Lord "over"), in a muted but present form in Augustine, and openly championed by some Reformed teachers today.
Essentially, what Hegel is saying is that men feel a basic attitude of alienation--their substance lies outside them and they can only overcome it by overcoming their particularity (179). Unfortunately, that is what Hegel calls a "contradiction."
This part of Hegel's Phenomenology is dealing heavily with social life, which I will cover in greater detail in the chapters on politics.
This next section of the book, and presumably the logical outflowing of Hegel's thought, deals with "manifest religion." I really don't want to spend a lot of time on this, partly because it is the most atrocious aspect of Hegel's thought, and partly because I want to get to the politics. However, Hegel is nothing if not consistent, and it is important to see how one section implies the next (which is exactly how his later Logic is set up). And as always, even when wrong Hegel has some excellent insights on the human dynamic.
Building on Hegel's premise that God/Geist/Spirit, which is the ultimate reality, must be embodied in history, it follows that one must ask in what manner is it embodied? One of the most fundamental modes, Hegel posits, is in religion (197). Briefly stated, Hegel sees each epoch in human history as manifesting religion, but always in a contradictory way. The Greeks were able to apprehend "the universal," but they could only do so in a finite and limited way (and thus the infinite/finite contradiction). This contradiction is not a bad thing, though, for it opened up the possibility of the Christian religion (with a detour through the Hebrews). Hegel sees the ultimate religious expression in the Incarnation.
What do we make of this?
Like anything Hegel says, much of the surface-level language is quite good, but once you get beyond that you see the truly bizarre theology. Hegel has a strong emphasis on community and will say that is where the true Christian expression is found. From our perspective, this sounds a lot like saying Christ is found in the church, and that is true. Unfortunately, Hegel was not using that in the same way we are.
At this point in the narrative we are beginning the discussion of Hegel's two-volume Logic. While this is the hardest of his works to understand (and I certainly don't understand them beyond a fourth-grade level), it will be easy to discuss them. His main points are clear and tied together.
A Dialectic of Categories
When one is studying reality, Hegel says, one can start anywhere in the system, for each facet is ultimately tied together (226). If we start with "Being" then our method will proceed dialectically. What he means by that is the very structure of reality has a contradiction, and in overcoming that contradiction Being moves forth to something else. Throughout the whole of this discussion, Hegel is starting from Kant and reworking the system along problems he sees in Kant.
To avoid confusion, and to silence the right-wing conspiracy bloggers, Hegel's idea of contradiction is this: he has a two-pronged argument, the first showing that a given category is indispensable, the second showing that it leads to a characterization of reality which is somehow impossible or incoherent (228).
In developing the above contradiction, Hegel assumes the Plotinian dialectic: a Something can only be defined by referent to another with which it is contrasted (236).
Hegel says a lot more on these topics, but I will not. Throughout Taylor's analysis he reveals interstesting facets of Hegel's thought, showing him to be a true heir of Augustine and Plotinus.
Most right-wing bloggers think that Hegel's view is the Illuminati finding its ultimate expression in world-government. Actually, what Hegel means is that communities become vehicles of the "Spirit." This can (and has) been taken in numerous ways. I see it as communities organically expressing a common spirit, common values (see Augustine, City of God Book 19.4).
Hegel is trying to overcome the dilemma that social life poses: per man's subjective life the important thing is freedom of spirit. However, man also lives in community and the norms of the community often bind his freedom of spirit (it is to Hegel's credit that he recognized this problem generations before Nietszche and the existentialists).
Hegel suggests the form man must attain is a social form (366). It is important to note that what Hegel means by "state" is much different than what Anglo-Americans mean by it. Hegel means the "politically organized community" (387). Let's explore these few sentences for a moment. Throughout his philosophy Hegel warns against "abstractions," by which he means taking an entity outside its network of relations. With regard to politics, if abstraction is bad then it necessarily follows that man's telos is in a community. Man comes into the world already in a network of relations.
Reason and History
Given Hegel's commitment about the fulfillment of spirit, it follows that communities grow. As seen above, Hegel's applies to history the problem of self-fulfillment. How does man realize the fulfillment of the Idea?
Jews: realization that God is pure, subjective Spirit. Ends up negating finite reality.
Greek: opposite of Jewish mentality. Harmonizes God with "natural expression." Ends up with idolatry. Greek polis is pariochial. Each state his its own God. A universal realization of spirit is thus impossible. Men were identified with Greek state. Democracy natural expression. There is a necessary contradiction within the Greek polis: only represents a part of finite reality.
Romans: Origin of the idea as "Person," bearer of "abstract right" (397).
Christianity: the finite subject and absolute spirit can be reconciled. The task of history is to make this reconciliation public--this is the Church.
Germans: they were to take it to the next stage.
The rest of European history is a working out these processes, a transformation of institutions. It is hear that we see feudalism, etc. At this point we need to correct a mistake about Hegel: Hegel is not saying that world history climaxes with Prussian Germany. There is no sensible way he could have believed that. Germany was weak and defeated when he wrote (it would have been interesting and perhaps more perceptive to say that Russia was the bearer of the World Spirit). Nonetheless, as Hegel notes and as his critics routinely miss, history did take an interesting turn in the 19th century and the force of ideas does not simply stop because the historian wants them to stop.
The Foundations of the Modern State
Monarchy as the Representative Individual: consistent with his earlier points, Hegel notes that there must be some way for the individual to retain his subjective right, yet at the same time freely and fully identify with the community (Staat). This happens by way of monarchy. Beneath the monarchy are Estates, who mediate the King to the people. Nowhere does Hegel mean representation according to our usage today. The King does not "represent" the will of the people, but through his kingly majesty allows the people to identify (399).
Interestingly, Taylor notes that the Reformation ended up desacralizing the political order, eventually seeing it as a "heap of objects" (401). This, of course, is the philosophy of nominalism.
The French Revolution: Political Terror
Hegel defines it as "absolute, unlimited freedom." Complete freedom means that outcome should be decided by me. Of course, since I am in society it is not decided by me alone. Therefore, complete freedom is decided by the strongest individual. This is the conclusion of indivdiualism ala Locke.
Charles Taylor is embarrassed by Hegel's rejection of the principles of the French Revolution. I think the reason is that if Hegel is right and one should view the Modern Narrative as a continuation of the French Revolution, then the only moral alternative is to reject said narrative. He notes (if not likes) Hegel's challenge to modernity: the modern ideology of equality and of total participation leads to a homogenization of society. This shakes men loose from their traditional communities but cannot replace them as a focus of identity" (414).
Translation: all natural societies organically flow from a unified belief system/ethnos (cf. Augustine, City of God, 19.4). Modernity is the negation of this. Without this unified system of belief, men cannot "connect" to one another. Thus, no real community. Thus, no real unity and society is held together by force (ala Hegel on Rome) and terror (ala Hegel on France).
Modernity is nominalism of politics.
Hegel's conclusion, which Taylor rejects, is a rationalized monarchy. Hegel was a monarchist but he was not a traditionalist, and for that reason he was not a conservative. He agreed with the older conservatives that society must be founded on authority, estates, and a strong monarch; Hegel, however, based these spheres, not on divine right or tradition, but on reason. In this sense Hegel stands firmly in the Enlightenment.
According to Hegel France is utterly lost in terms of a political future. England is better, but she is not far behind in spiritual rot, for England (like America today) is run riot with an excess on particular rights. And in this chaos of individualism, special interest groups backed by powerful elites have taken control (like America today).
Taylor notes that for Hegel,
"The only force which could cure this would be a strong monarchy like those late medieval kings which forced through the barons the rights of the universal. But the English have crucially weakened their monarchy; it is powerless before Parliament which is the cockpit of private interests (454).
I first found this line of reasoning from Fr. Raphael Johnson's take on Russian history. I guess Johnson got it from Hegel himself since he wrote his Master's thesis on Hegel.
Taylor continues to the conclusion,
Hence the vehicle by which rational constitution could best be introduced and made real was a powerful modernizing monarchy...Hegel had hopes for the future based on the climate of his times. Germany had been shocked into reform by the Napoleonic conquest. It consisted of societies founded on law in which principles of rational Enlightenment had already gone some way and seemed bound to go further. It had a Protestant political culture and hence could achieve a rational constitution unlike the benighted peoples of Latin Europe, and it was not too far gone in rot like England. It held to the monarchical principle and the monarchs retained some real power unlike England, and yet the societies were law societies (454-455).
This paragraph warrants some reflection:
Although I am a traditionalist, and Hegel is not, I agree that a modernizing monarchy is much preferred than unreflected claims to "Throne and Altar." Many monarchists today naively think that "restoring a king" will return the land to justice. Ironically, this tends to lead to the same problems that Republican government leads: you have the vision of a few determining the fate of the whole. Rather, a strong monarch who enforces Republican structures in the land, arising from the will of the ethnos (shades of Johann Herder), existing primarily to reign in the excesses of the free market, is one who is both authoritarian yet the people are still free.
I am not sure on Hegel's optimism for a Protestant Monarchy. I know that Germany saw as much, and even England can claim to be a "monarchy" in some vague watered-down sense (while we are at it, I actually encourage one to read the thoughtful positions by N. T. Wright and Oliver O'Donovan on monarchy). However, most Protestant political forces have been confessedly thoroughly anti-monarchist, and it is no surprise there are few Protestant Monarchies left. Happily, though, there are examples of good, Protestant monarchies.
While I disagree with founding a country on "the principles of Enlightenment," given that it was the other horn of the dialectic (the other being Augustinian Filioquist politics), I don't see that Hegel had much of an alternative choice. If Western history represented a dialectical clash after the Schism, then Hegel can't be faulted for simply living and thinking through his times (as we all do).
Interestingly, Hegel's vision sounds a lot like Putin's Russia: a strong leader wary of the excesses of the market and trying to create "intermediate spaces" to shelter the yeoman from predatory capitalism.
Conclusion
In many ways Taylor's book is essential. One has to know how Hegel is using terminology and Taylor is a reliable guide in that regard. Taylor cannot square himself with Hegel's politics, though, since Hegel is a rejection (negation?) of modernity.
April 29, 2021
For many years I've been under the impression that this is one of the classics of Hegel scholarship. But I have to say I found it pretty bad, and I abandoned it after about 150 pages.
Let's start with the writing. Taylor is not a good author - his prose style is turgid and opaque, and crowded with empty phrases that have no content. I lost track of how many times he said "As we previously saw in chapter blah...", or "As we will go on to see in later chapters...." Just cluttered the page.
Sometimes his arguments strike me as sour or off-base, and in a manner that is hard to account for. For example, Taylor notes Hegel's famous claim in Spirit and Fate of Christianity that Kant would eliminate subservience to the authority of a political lord, and replaces it with obedience to a despot that one has found within one's own heart. Taylor characterizes this criticism as a "cruel ad hominem," which I find frankly bizarre. Personally, I would not even call it polemical. But this is not merely an overreaction, it is literally false, because no claim is made with respect to Kant's person whatsoever.
I did like his emphasis of how much Hegel drew from Herder, and I think he is correct that Herder was a key model for Hegel's strong emphasis on the historical situatedness of philosophical views. But I didn't need this angle to be movementized, and think Taylor's concept of the "expressivist school" adds little clarity to intellectual history - especially for a period and milieu already crowded with labels.
For a work called "Hegel," Taylor often seemed at a great remove from Hegel's actual words and ideas, and this, I think, is the chief of the book's various weaknesses. He only rarely engages closely with Hegel's actual texts, with his actual writing. Most often he narrates from a view of 10,000 feet, and I suppose we are to take his word for his exegesis, because he does not usually argue on behalf of his views, or connect them to Hegel's actual statements.
This was a real disappointment. I know the Neo-Kantian view has a lot of clout right now in the Hegel scholarship, and I was hoping for a counter-balancing position - especially because I do think that those readings probably lean too heavily on epistemology, and focus too much on Hegel's use of Critique of Pure Reason, and not enough on Critique of Judgment. But Taylor simply didn't make an argument I could take hold of, or intellectually justify.
Let's start with the writing. Taylor is not a good author - his prose style is turgid and opaque, and crowded with empty phrases that have no content. I lost track of how many times he said "As we previously saw in chapter blah...", or "As we will go on to see in later chapters...." Just cluttered the page.
Sometimes his arguments strike me as sour or off-base, and in a manner that is hard to account for. For example, Taylor notes Hegel's famous claim in Spirit and Fate of Christianity that Kant would eliminate subservience to the authority of a political lord, and replaces it with obedience to a despot that one has found within one's own heart. Taylor characterizes this criticism as a "cruel ad hominem," which I find frankly bizarre. Personally, I would not even call it polemical. But this is not merely an overreaction, it is literally false, because no claim is made with respect to Kant's person whatsoever.
I did like his emphasis of how much Hegel drew from Herder, and I think he is correct that Herder was a key model for Hegel's strong emphasis on the historical situatedness of philosophical views. But I didn't need this angle to be movementized, and think Taylor's concept of the "expressivist school" adds little clarity to intellectual history - especially for a period and milieu already crowded with labels.
For a work called "Hegel," Taylor often seemed at a great remove from Hegel's actual words and ideas, and this, I think, is the chief of the book's various weaknesses. He only rarely engages closely with Hegel's actual texts, with his actual writing. Most often he narrates from a view of 10,000 feet, and I suppose we are to take his word for his exegesis, because he does not usually argue on behalf of his views, or connect them to Hegel's actual statements.
This was a real disappointment. I know the Neo-Kantian view has a lot of clout right now in the Hegel scholarship, and I was hoping for a counter-balancing position - especially because I do think that those readings probably lean too heavily on epistemology, and focus too much on Hegel's use of Critique of Pure Reason, and not enough on Critique of Judgment. But Taylor simply didn't make an argument I could take hold of, or intellectually justify.
June 29, 2012
What exactly was Charles Taylor’s goal in this book? Chronologically this is a book that introduces the environment Hegel was born in, then discusses the philosophy of Hegel, in order of publication, and concludes with the typical chapter asking how Hegel is important today.
As far as placing Hegel in his setting, Taylor does a great job. Kant was the German zenith of Enlightenment philosophy, and many philosophers slightly before and after him attempted to wrestle against pure reason in a Romantic movement. Others held a philosophy of Expressivism, as Taylor dubs it. And, to contrary opinion, Taylor sees Hegel as a philosopher who is trying to systemically embolden the Enlightenment: everything is rational is Kant’s clarion call squared.
It’s the squaring that Taylor flubs on. If this book is supposed to serve as a clearer expression to Hegel, than Hegel himself provides, that’s dubious. Like Hegel, Taylor will draw out a single point over and over again, until we reach some kind of vague conclusion, and then start afresh with the vague conclusion, and the single point, repeating the process. This classic dialectic, often longwinded, can be found in almost every chapter Hegel writes, or Marx’s chapter on the commodity. This dialectic is fine for the two master dialecticians, but not for someone attempting to clear up a philosophy.
Also, although Taylor covers Hegel’s books, in chronological order, his own book cannot serve as a source book, nor a guide to Hegel’s works. Taylor categorically omits whole chapters and sections, deeming some outside the scope his book – the scope of his book weighing in at 600 pages, makes the claim rather dubious – but delves into others. For instance, the first chapter on sense certainty of the Phenomenology of Spirit is as long as the actual chapter, if not longer, in Hegel’s. Yet the following two chapters of the PoS are written off as unnecessary.
He follows this same pattern throughout the PoS, and in both of Hegel’s logics. Again, if he’s trying to clear up Hegel, he’s not, and if he’s trying to offer a reference tome, or work to guide Hegelian travelers through the mired waters of Hegel’s prose, he’s not doing that either. I can think of a number of superior authors that cover both paths.
Nonetheless, the book is still good Philosophy. Taylor does ‘know’ his subject, and he makes the reader wrestle with serious issues, sometimes cogent philosophy and he at least gave the reader the intellectual background to understand the who-what-where’s-and whys of Hegel’s goals. This can be missed when someone just cracks open a book by Hegel, without any historical or biographical knowledge regarding Hegel’s MO. Philosopher’s do not write in vacuums, albeit Hegel wants you to believe he’s mastered the universe as Spirits embodied Philosopher King.
As far as placing Hegel in his setting, Taylor does a great job. Kant was the German zenith of Enlightenment philosophy, and many philosophers slightly before and after him attempted to wrestle against pure reason in a Romantic movement. Others held a philosophy of Expressivism, as Taylor dubs it. And, to contrary opinion, Taylor sees Hegel as a philosopher who is trying to systemically embolden the Enlightenment: everything is rational is Kant’s clarion call squared.
It’s the squaring that Taylor flubs on. If this book is supposed to serve as a clearer expression to Hegel, than Hegel himself provides, that’s dubious. Like Hegel, Taylor will draw out a single point over and over again, until we reach some kind of vague conclusion, and then start afresh with the vague conclusion, and the single point, repeating the process. This classic dialectic, often longwinded, can be found in almost every chapter Hegel writes, or Marx’s chapter on the commodity. This dialectic is fine for the two master dialecticians, but not for someone attempting to clear up a philosophy.
Also, although Taylor covers Hegel’s books, in chronological order, his own book cannot serve as a source book, nor a guide to Hegel’s works. Taylor categorically omits whole chapters and sections, deeming some outside the scope his book – the scope of his book weighing in at 600 pages, makes the claim rather dubious – but delves into others. For instance, the first chapter on sense certainty of the Phenomenology of Spirit is as long as the actual chapter, if not longer, in Hegel’s. Yet the following two chapters of the PoS are written off as unnecessary.
He follows this same pattern throughout the PoS, and in both of Hegel’s logics. Again, if he’s trying to clear up Hegel, he’s not, and if he’s trying to offer a reference tome, or work to guide Hegelian travelers through the mired waters of Hegel’s prose, he’s not doing that either. I can think of a number of superior authors that cover both paths.
Nonetheless, the book is still good Philosophy. Taylor does ‘know’ his subject, and he makes the reader wrestle with serious issues, sometimes cogent philosophy and he at least gave the reader the intellectual background to understand the who-what-where’s-and whys of Hegel’s goals. This can be missed when someone just cracks open a book by Hegel, without any historical or biographical knowledge regarding Hegel’s MO. Philosopher’s do not write in vacuums, albeit Hegel wants you to believe he’s mastered the universe as Spirits embodied Philosopher King.
intermittently-reading
August 9, 2016PART I: Expressivism was a form of late 18th century German thought which sought to conceptualize a way to heal the Enlightenment rift between meaning and being. In act and expression did man self-realize himself; a subjectivity defining itself—via deed and gesture—in relation to that which unfolds within. Language and Art became the media through which this expression—meaning, being—is realized.
Espressivism sought:
Fichte proposed a Transcendental Idealism absent the Thing-in-Itself; so nature comes to serve as a prop for the subject in his freedom and self-realizing. However, if there is to be a true unity of self with nature, reasoning being with instinct, without subsumption of the former within the latter, then nature—in which the subject needs be immersed—must be more than universal object; it requires its own subjectivity, a cosmic being, that is in its own process of self-realization. In this Fichtean fusion, however, the two subjectivities, individual and universal, can only approach union, never attain it.
After Kant, the Romantics—Fichte, Schiller, Schlegel, Schelling—strove to maintain the former's exciting radical Moral Freedom; but the Thing-in-Itself upset their sought-for unity, that wholeness with nature. Thus, their philosophies posited the object as being entirely dependent upon the subject, whilst determining the latter as but an individual component of an unresolved spirit subjectifying objective nature; and so they strove to reconcile two opposing strains:
Espressivism sought:
A) to heal the Enlightenment/Cartesian duality of mind/body, spirit/nature which makes subjective man's feelings and customs a part of objectified nature, andThis Romantic German Ideal was a fusion between the radical freedom of Kantian morality—reason in transcendence choosing the moral law as against our desires and inclinations—on the one hand, and the Expressivist goal of a communion of man with those innate desires and inclinations in the natural world—and his fellow man in community—on the other. A spiral voyage from the early unreflective and universal Greek purity of subjective and objective union to a higher stage of colligation through the unfolding of history—in a manner of speaking, a merging of Kantian subject and Spinozist substance.
B) in opposition to the Enlightenment's negative freedoms—of the subject from impositions by the state, religion, etc—the promised positive freedoms of artistic self-expression; and
C) that our subjective self might be at one with the nature of which its body is a constituent part; seek a communion with greater nature at the material and spiritual levels if we are to be authentically expressive and fully-realized; and
D) to replace atomistic, morally self-sufficient individuals in external relations with each other with a similar communion of shared experiences and bonds of unity—a fellowship in lieu of a rights-laden individual.
Fichte proposed a Transcendental Idealism absent the Thing-in-Itself; so nature comes to serve as a prop for the subject in his freedom and self-realizing. However, if there is to be a true unity of self with nature, reasoning being with instinct, without subsumption of the former within the latter, then nature—in which the subject needs be immersed—must be more than universal object; it requires its own subjectivity, a cosmic being, that is in its own process of self-realization. In this Fichtean fusion, however, the two subjectivities, individual and universal, can only approach union, never attain it.
After Kant, the Romantics—Fichte, Schiller, Schlegel, Schelling—strove to maintain the former's exciting radical Moral Freedom; but the Thing-in-Itself upset their sought-for unity, that wholeness with nature. Thus, their philosophies posited the object as being entirely dependent upon the subject, whilst determining the latter as but an individual component of an unresolved spirit subjectifying objective nature; and so they strove to reconcile two opposing strains:
1) Nature possessed in itself of a petrified spirit in the process of self-realizing via man, andThis squaring of the circle could never be successfully managed by the Romantic predecessors to, and peers of, Hegel; it was left to him to come closest to crafting a system reconciling these two strains without the one overwhelming or proving antinomial towards the other.
2) Man must be the vehicle of Geist without being thusly rendered incompatible with his vocation of rational autonomy.
October 13, 2009
So helpful. Cleanly slices through the concept. Taylor skips many minute details, but expresses the general point. Sacrifice accuracy for the sake of clarity? Perhaps, but at least this way you might have time to learn more than one thing before you die.
February 8, 2018
I won't try the impossible task of reviewing a rich 600 page book in 600 words. Instead, I'll point out several noteworthy themes before quoting a passage that encapsulates the import of the book as a whole. For readers of Hegel, shaped by contemporary debates in the English language Hegel scholarship, Taylor's book serves as a corrective, illustrating the plausibility and fruitfulness of a metaphysically robust reading of Hegel's corpus as a whole. Notwithstanding the insightfulness of work by Pippen, Pinkard, and Brandom, Taylor's perspective on Hegel should not be dismissed. (Cyril O'Regan offers a recent example of English language Hegel scholarship along Taylorian lines.) Second, Taylor's framing of Hegel's problem in terms of expressivism is incredibly insightful, serving as a reminder that Hegel's problem is our problem. This is the problem of alienation, alienation from our bodies, our community, nature, and the divine, a problem that is coterminous with the rise of modernity. Third, Taylor offers a clear and detailed reading of Hegel's logic, which on its own makes the book worth reading. Fourth, Taylor nicely shows Hegel's appreciation of religion in a way that is often lost on others commentators. On his reading, religion serves an indispensable role in overcoming alienation and promoting rational agency by focusing the person's sentiments and dispositions on the absolute. Much else is of immense interest in this book, including Taylor's discussion of Hegel's implications for politics. I will end with a quote:
"And in so far as this search for a situated subjectivity takes philosophical form, Hegel’s thought will be one of its indispensable points of reference. For although his ontological vision is not ours – indeed seems to deny the very problem as we now understand it – Hegel’s writings provide one of the most profound and far-reaching attempts to work out a vision of embodied subjectivity, of thought and freedom emerging from the stream of life, finding expression in the forms of social existence, and discovering themselves in relation to nature and history. If the philosophical attempt to situate freedom is the attempt to gain a conception of man in which free action is the response to what we are – or to a call which comes to us, from nature alone or a God who is also beyond nature (the debate will never cease) – then it will always recur behind Hegel’s conclusions to his strenuous and penetrating reflections on embodied spirit" (p. 571).
"And in so far as this search for a situated subjectivity takes philosophical form, Hegel’s thought will be one of its indispensable points of reference. For although his ontological vision is not ours – indeed seems to deny the very problem as we now understand it – Hegel’s writings provide one of the most profound and far-reaching attempts to work out a vision of embodied subjectivity, of thought and freedom emerging from the stream of life, finding expression in the forms of social existence, and discovering themselves in relation to nature and history. If the philosophical attempt to situate freedom is the attempt to gain a conception of man in which free action is the response to what we are – or to a call which comes to us, from nature alone or a God who is also beyond nature (the debate will never cease) – then it will always recur behind Hegel’s conclusions to his strenuous and penetrating reflections on embodied spirit" (p. 571).
November 8, 2010
probably the best book on hegel in english. I wish somebody would write a similar book on adorno in english. it is much needed!
July 20, 2018
Too American...too pragmatic, trying to answer questions, solve problems... But philosophy is something else, not the very pragmatic art of solving problems...
May 4, 2021
It seems a bit niederträchtig to rate this heroic work a 4/5. It is quite impressive in its own right: a comprehensive study of G.W.F. Hegel's philosophy that gives due attention to Hegel's intellectual context and his continuing relevance today. Also, it did much to revitalize Hegel studies in the Anglosphere when it appeared in 1975.
Then again, I am a philosophical valet, one that has read more recent scholarship on Hegel. And, as anyone acquainted with the literature knows, most Hegel scholars today feel compelled to pooh-pooh Taylor's work. They claim that it is too "metaphysical," "theological," or whatever; whereas Hegel should be read in a "deflationary" or "non-metaphysical" way. I do not have the exegetical chops to adjudicate these claims, but I suspect that they are only partially true. For what it is worth (which is not much), my own sympathies lie with the readings of Hegel found in figures such as Gillian Rose, Rowan Williams, and Stephen Theron.
Taylor's work is helpful because it is impressionistic, giving one a general view of Hegel's project (or, if you prefer, system). I found it unhelpful for the same reason: it is sketchy. Here, the "non-metaphysical" readers of Hegel (e.g., Pippin, Pinkard, and Brandom) have given me sufficient doubt that Taylor's interpretation of some fundamental ideas in Hegel is correct. The obvious one that everybody mentions is Taylor's interpretation of Geist. Since Taylor does not offer detailed commentary on any of the works that he treats--and others, such as Hyppolite, Harris, Stern, and Kalkavage do--the result is that some of his controversial interpretations seem to lack textual support.
Many of these matters might be argued in Taylor's favor. In addition to the writers I have already expressed sympathy for, there are a handful of young Catholic and Anglican intellectuals today who offer alternatives to both the "metaphysical" and the "deflationary" Hegels of yesteryear. Reconciliation, if it is to happen at all, lies in the future.
Then again, I am a philosophical valet, one that has read more recent scholarship on Hegel. And, as anyone acquainted with the literature knows, most Hegel scholars today feel compelled to pooh-pooh Taylor's work. They claim that it is too "metaphysical," "theological," or whatever; whereas Hegel should be read in a "deflationary" or "non-metaphysical" way. I do not have the exegetical chops to adjudicate these claims, but I suspect that they are only partially true. For what it is worth (which is not much), my own sympathies lie with the readings of Hegel found in figures such as Gillian Rose, Rowan Williams, and Stephen Theron.
Taylor's work is helpful because it is impressionistic, giving one a general view of Hegel's project (or, if you prefer, system). I found it unhelpful for the same reason: it is sketchy. Here, the "non-metaphysical" readers of Hegel (e.g., Pippin, Pinkard, and Brandom) have given me sufficient doubt that Taylor's interpretation of some fundamental ideas in Hegel is correct. The obvious one that everybody mentions is Taylor's interpretation of Geist. Since Taylor does not offer detailed commentary on any of the works that he treats--and others, such as Hyppolite, Harris, Stern, and Kalkavage do--the result is that some of his controversial interpretations seem to lack textual support.
Many of these matters might be argued in Taylor's favor. In addition to the writers I have already expressed sympathy for, there are a handful of young Catholic and Anglican intellectuals today who offer alternatives to both the "metaphysical" and the "deflationary" Hegels of yesteryear. Reconciliation, if it is to happen at all, lies in the future.
December 8, 2019
Great scholarship which for me provided a way of engaging with Hegel's ideas and relating them to contemporary concerns without the difficult process of struggling through his writing. At some points the book gets lost in Hegelian metaphysical terminology, and I wish Taylor was a little more explicit about how we should think of the content of such metaphysics. But the last chapter is wonderful, and the moments where Taylor connects Hegel to modern thinking and other philosophers throughout the book are sharp. I'm not sure how much reading this raised my estimation of Hegel. Taylor's analysis makes a good case that Hegel deeply understood the contradictions and tension-points in various philosophical positions - whether they be metaphysical, moral, scientific, aesthetic, etc - but as Taylor suggests, the Hegelian "synthesis" of these tensions doesn't feel fully adequate, and it is hard to accept his fundamentally contradictory view of the universe (though a small part of me does think Hegel might be "right" in some sense, and this book got me to appreciate that). Where Hegel seems most on track is on his more "social" philosophies of politics/art/religion, and even language/history. Some of his conclusions and intentional interpretations of phenomena are unsustainable, but I think the positions he works out in moral/political domains are some of the better ways we can articulate such subject matter at this level of abstraction. It is the issue of what can be said at certain levels of abstraction that I found myself thinking about throughout this work. Hegel's positions seem to teeter between profound expressions on the nature of whatever domain he is considering, to empty jargon that doesn't actually *say* anything. I tend to incline towards the latter more skeptical view, but it is far from a simple binary division. More could be said about specific areas but those are my thoughts at the more abstract level. Last chapter is masterful - deals with ongoing contemporary issues in defining subjectivity, freedom, political ends, and the relation of language/conceptual structure to those concerns.
July 18, 2025
**Not to be dismissed, but also not the best.**
The common anecdote of the beginning of Analytic Philosophy goes as follows: In 1899 British philosopher Bertrand Russell was having gripes with the philosophy conducted by British Hegelians. To him, the movement of british Hegelianism was confused, the texts were written in an esoteric language, there were no standard rules of argument, the ideas being discussed seemed to not be grounded in reality whatsoever. Russell decided that enough was enough and he set out on a course to correct the mistakes made by his academic peers. And so, analytic philosophy arose as a direct reaction and rejection of Hegelianism.
In his autobiography Russell noted: “As I grew older, I discovered that almost everything I disliked in philosophy was due to Hegel. Accordingly, I have ever since been opposed to him, and whatever may be true in his system, I am firmly persuaded that the opposite is likely to be true.”
The movement of Analytic philosophy followed suit, with these ideas. There was a deep and almost childish hatred of Hegel in academia in this time. The landmark piece of this era was Karl Poppers Open society and Its Enemies (1945), wherein Popper argued that Hegel, among others, was a leading figure for totalitarian movements.
Taylor’s book was written in a precarious time in Hegel scholarship. It was written in a period I’d like to call the anglo-hegelian thaw, wherein anglophone philosophers were beginning to open up more to Hegel’s writings. At the same time Taylor’s book was being written, JN Findlay was also writing his own reappraisal of Hegel’s philosophy. This was a landmark moment in the history of Hegelianism, both Taylor and Findlay were analytic philosophers, and they were attempting to show that the rejection of Hegelianism by Russell might have been dogmatic.
The intrigue sparked Taylors book, alongside certain German works, lead to a revival of Hegelianism in modern philosophy. Though, not everyone was in agreement with Taylor. Robert Pippin, John Burbridge, and many others dedicated a part of their early careers to refuting the claims and interpretations laid by Taylor in this book.
In a similar vein to Kojeve, I believe this book is better read as a historical curiosity rather than an actual secondary resource. It is a hallmark of its era, but it remains very dated and heavily critiqued today.
For one, and this is most glaring, Taylor doesn’t actually interact much with Hegel’s texts himself. Usually in scholarly texts on Hegel authors meticulously quote and even retranslate parts of Hegel’s primary work to explain and show their interpretation. Taylor, on the other hand, gives a very distant reading, making so that you essentially have to trust that what he is saying also can be seen in Hegel’s own work.
As a result of this birds eye approach some of Taylor’s interpretations seem to abstract a lot from Hegel’s own texts. This isn’t unheard of in the tradition, I believe that both the Kantian and Rationalist interpretations found in modern academia are both very susceptible to this kind of critique, but Taylor definitely does this much more than any modern Hegel scholar. One of the most infamous examples from his reading is his treatment of Spirit as a kind of actual spirit, or ghost, which dwells in the world.
This sounds a bit too critical, but Taylor’s text is dated by today’s standards, but it played a massive role in Hegel scholarship as we know it today. This isn’t to say that there is nothing to be learned from this book. Taylor is among one of the few anglophone scholars who engages with Hegels influences beyond the standard Kant, Fichte, Schelling. Most prominently Taylor discusses how Herder was an influence to Hegel.
In this regard Taylor’s reading is also surprisingly open for beginners who don’t really understand who Hegel or his influences were. This isn’t to say it’s an easy read (the book is old after all), but it doesn’t expect much knowledge on the subject from its readers.
Despite the interpretational inaccuracies in certain points Taylor still has his moments of elucidation, most prominently and helpfully in the 200 pages he dedicates to the Logic. Some authors either have an incredibly concise reading of the Logic in their tomes (Pinkard, Fritzman, Vieweg), others only cover a small part of the Logic (Houlgate, Ng, Longuenesse), Taylor choses the path of abundance and offers a full chapter by chapter commentary of the entire Logic in his interpretation. Even if sometimes the interpretations he draws are shoddy, the fact he even dedicates 200 pages to explaining Hegels most important work is worthy of reading in and of itself.
Ultimately, I don’t consider this the worst place one could start reading Hegel. I certainly enjoyed reading it, but I would not recommend this to be the one and only book one reads on Hegel. There are better options out there, but ultimately none of the scholarship of this time in particular fully stood the test of time.
The common anecdote of the beginning of Analytic Philosophy goes as follows: In 1899 British philosopher Bertrand Russell was having gripes with the philosophy conducted by British Hegelians. To him, the movement of british Hegelianism was confused, the texts were written in an esoteric language, there were no standard rules of argument, the ideas being discussed seemed to not be grounded in reality whatsoever. Russell decided that enough was enough and he set out on a course to correct the mistakes made by his academic peers. And so, analytic philosophy arose as a direct reaction and rejection of Hegelianism.
In his autobiography Russell noted: “As I grew older, I discovered that almost everything I disliked in philosophy was due to Hegel. Accordingly, I have ever since been opposed to him, and whatever may be true in his system, I am firmly persuaded that the opposite is likely to be true.”
The movement of Analytic philosophy followed suit, with these ideas. There was a deep and almost childish hatred of Hegel in academia in this time. The landmark piece of this era was Karl Poppers Open society and Its Enemies (1945), wherein Popper argued that Hegel, among others, was a leading figure for totalitarian movements.
Taylor’s book was written in a precarious time in Hegel scholarship. It was written in a period I’d like to call the anglo-hegelian thaw, wherein anglophone philosophers were beginning to open up more to Hegel’s writings. At the same time Taylor’s book was being written, JN Findlay was also writing his own reappraisal of Hegel’s philosophy. This was a landmark moment in the history of Hegelianism, both Taylor and Findlay were analytic philosophers, and they were attempting to show that the rejection of Hegelianism by Russell might have been dogmatic.
The intrigue sparked Taylors book, alongside certain German works, lead to a revival of Hegelianism in modern philosophy. Though, not everyone was in agreement with Taylor. Robert Pippin, John Burbridge, and many others dedicated a part of their early careers to refuting the claims and interpretations laid by Taylor in this book.
In a similar vein to Kojeve, I believe this book is better read as a historical curiosity rather than an actual secondary resource. It is a hallmark of its era, but it remains very dated and heavily critiqued today.
For one, and this is most glaring, Taylor doesn’t actually interact much with Hegel’s texts himself. Usually in scholarly texts on Hegel authors meticulously quote and even retranslate parts of Hegel’s primary work to explain and show their interpretation. Taylor, on the other hand, gives a very distant reading, making so that you essentially have to trust that what he is saying also can be seen in Hegel’s own work.
As a result of this birds eye approach some of Taylor’s interpretations seem to abstract a lot from Hegel’s own texts. This isn’t unheard of in the tradition, I believe that both the Kantian and Rationalist interpretations found in modern academia are both very susceptible to this kind of critique, but Taylor definitely does this much more than any modern Hegel scholar. One of the most infamous examples from his reading is his treatment of Spirit as a kind of actual spirit, or ghost, which dwells in the world.
This sounds a bit too critical, but Taylor’s text is dated by today’s standards, but it played a massive role in Hegel scholarship as we know it today. This isn’t to say that there is nothing to be learned from this book. Taylor is among one of the few anglophone scholars who engages with Hegels influences beyond the standard Kant, Fichte, Schelling. Most prominently Taylor discusses how Herder was an influence to Hegel.
In this regard Taylor’s reading is also surprisingly open for beginners who don’t really understand who Hegel or his influences were. This isn’t to say it’s an easy read (the book is old after all), but it doesn’t expect much knowledge on the subject from its readers.
Despite the interpretational inaccuracies in certain points Taylor still has his moments of elucidation, most prominently and helpfully in the 200 pages he dedicates to the Logic. Some authors either have an incredibly concise reading of the Logic in their tomes (Pinkard, Fritzman, Vieweg), others only cover a small part of the Logic (Houlgate, Ng, Longuenesse), Taylor choses the path of abundance and offers a full chapter by chapter commentary of the entire Logic in his interpretation. Even if sometimes the interpretations he draws are shoddy, the fact he even dedicates 200 pages to explaining Hegels most important work is worthy of reading in and of itself.
Ultimately, I don’t consider this the worst place one could start reading Hegel. I certainly enjoyed reading it, but I would not recommend this to be the one and only book one reads on Hegel. There are better options out there, but ultimately none of the scholarship of this time in particular fully stood the test of time.
May 22, 2022
This was kind of a "homework" read for me: I didn't go in with a particularly keen interest in Hegel myself, but he's mentioned so frequently by a wide variety of 20th-century writers that I felt like I was missing out. I read a bit of the Phenomenology earlier this year, with some help from a friend, but I wasn't making much headway.
I went with Taylor's Hegel despite it being allegedly out-of-date, because I'd been a fan of some of Taylor's other writing. On the whole I think it was a good choice. Taylor is occasionally long-winded, and frankly the book could use some serious editing, but he strikes a great balance on being accessible for an amateur like me without dumbing things down too much (as far as I noticed). In particular, he's excellent on the historical context; I'd highly recommend the first ~50 pages for anyone looking for an overview of the period in Germany.
Honestly, I did not enjoy reading this book, but I feel like I have WAY more context on what every 20th-century thinker is talking about. I'm also left with a begrudging respect for Hegel; although, as Taylor points out, it's hard to take him too literally after the intervening 200 years of history, Hegel's philosophy offers compelling resolutions to gnarly problems that other systems get stuck on. I can see why so many people keep going back to the well.
I went with Taylor's Hegel despite it being allegedly out-of-date, because I'd been a fan of some of Taylor's other writing. On the whole I think it was a good choice. Taylor is occasionally long-winded, and frankly the book could use some serious editing, but he strikes a great balance on being accessible for an amateur like me without dumbing things down too much (as far as I noticed). In particular, he's excellent on the historical context; I'd highly recommend the first ~50 pages for anyone looking for an overview of the period in Germany.
Honestly, I did not enjoy reading this book, but I feel like I have WAY more context on what every 20th-century thinker is talking about. I'm also left with a begrudging respect for Hegel; although, as Taylor points out, it's hard to take him too literally after the intervening 200 years of history, Hegel's philosophy offers compelling resolutions to gnarly problems that other systems get stuck on. I can see why so many people keep going back to the well.
January 23, 2021
A magisterial work. Taylor has long been a champion of the relevance of Hegel to contemporary social issues - in North America, Hegel has arguably been somewhat neglected as compared to continental Europe. Taylor confidently puts Hegel in the context of the intellectual currents of the time in which he was writing, when various strands of the enlightenment and romanticism were providing a multitude of ways of understanding humans and their societies. Unlike some of his contemporaries, Hegel did not maintain that autonomy by itself provided an adequate basis for moral life. Taylor argues that Hegel’s particular theories of what underlay human history / reality are not credible (i.e. Geist), but maintains that his work nevertheless surfaces and develops many important ideas and issues we continue to wrestle with today.
The reader will not only get a well-developed précis of Hegel’s thought but also a tour de force survey of the western philosophical tradition as well as interesting reflections on what Taylor sees as key contemporary social challenges.
The reader will not only get a well-developed précis of Hegel’s thought but also a tour de force survey of the western philosophical tradition as well as interesting reflections on what Taylor sees as key contemporary social challenges.
April 7, 2013
DENSE, and thorough introduction to this irritating German thinker. Introduction really isn't the term because to get the most out of this book, you require a fairly strong background in philosophy, as well as the ability to maintain your concentration over 600 or so pages of hardcore metaphysics. So, I can't recommend this to an absolute beginner ; as I was finishing up, I learnt of another introductory book (An Introduction to Hegel by Stephen Houlgate) which seems to be written in much more accessible prose, and which I plan on checking on some time later. As it stands, this is the best bet for someone who wants to know what this dude was on about, without actually reading him in the original. Apparently, Karl Marx had read and understood Hegel (in the original, no less) at the age of 18, but looks like those days are long past.
November 16, 2013
The best book on Hegel I've ever read. The one flaw: That Taylor often translates "geist" as god, which is a restrictive understanding of the term (it usually means "spirit", as in of a shared communal sort…there really isn't an english word for it). Overall, Taylor takes his skill for exhaustive analysis that is still eloquent and concise and applies it to one of the pillars of continental philosophy. If you have read Hegel's work and sense the reward in it but haven't quite accessed that reward, then I strongly suggest this book.
September 7, 2015
I read Hegel's Itinerary, Self-positing Spirit, The Dialectic of consciousness and Hegel Today.
Hegel is not easy to read for, so this book is an important commentary that clarifies some of his key concepts. I will be using this again when I study Hegel in more detail.
Interesting themes include: the Enlightenment's impact on Hegel, christian theology's impact on Hegel, Kant's influence on Hegel and how Hegel eventually broke away from him, Hegel's interest in unity and contradiction, the particular unity of nature with spirit, and Geist.
Hegel is not easy to read for, so this book is an important commentary that clarifies some of his key concepts. I will be using this again when I study Hegel in more detail.
Interesting themes include: the Enlightenment's impact on Hegel, christian theology's impact on Hegel, Kant's influence on Hegel and how Hegel eventually broke away from him, Hegel's interest in unity and contradiction, the particular unity of nature with spirit, and Geist.
April 4, 2011
Taylor desperately wanted to make Hegel into a religious philosopher. The result is not overly convincing... especially when compared to Robert Solomon's masterful take on Hegel as a true humanist.
February 8, 2018
brilliant
May 27, 2024
My original motivation to read Hegel stems from trying to interpret Marxist thought, since Marx derives a lot of his key ideas and his philosophical method of 'materialist dialectics' from him. The author does a very good job in placing Hegel in the post enlightenment period of German thinkers, with the likes of Kant, Schelling, Fichte, Feurbach, and others. All of the Hegel's major works - Phenomenology of Spirit, Logic, History and Politics, and Art, Religion and Philosophy, are covered in different chapters, along with the key ideas and commentary. The last chapter also deals with Hegel's legacy and his impact on the ideas of Marx, Nietzche, Heidegger, Husserl, and many others.
Overall, a good book to start off with Hegel. Although a background with Kant is much needed to understand the chapter on Logic.
Overall, a good book to start off with Hegel. Although a background with Kant is much needed to understand the chapter on Logic.
November 15, 2021
It's difficult to find good full-length treatments of Hegel. The most robust readings are terribly illucid, and the lucid commentaries are shamefully erroneous. Taylor's book is not without its complications—he is reluctant to rely on textual quotation and evidence at best, and has a nasty habit of outright ignoring the text at worst—but he at least provides a compelling view of Hegel's project and arguments in a style which is somehow enjoyable to read. Most of all, he doesn't get into any of that regrettable non-metaphysical-readings-of-Hegel business, which is a surprising rarity among Hegel scholarship these days.
February 26, 2023
This work is incredible and I don't have the knowledge to properly assess it except to say that it provides a way to approach Hegel...and many times my mind was buzzing with the excitement of new perceptions...such as learning about Hegel's definition of the infinite (which is not just one finite thing after another but more like a circle, self renewal). Or to think of oneself as a carrier of cosmic Spirit/Geist. Or that if we accomplish nothing else, we can define our lives as having the vocation of rational autonomy. Oh yes, this book is long and challenging but like Hegel's philosophy, necessary.
January 2, 2026
An exceptionally thorough and helpful text. Chapter 1 and 2 provide an illuminating account of the historical/cultural background to Hegel's thought, the questions/problems Hegel undertook to resolve, and the unique shape of his attempted solution. This book also gave the first explanation of the Master/Slave Dialectic that has ever made any sense to me. The section on the Science of Logic is brutal though.
January 19, 2023
Charles Taylor's Hegel isn't quite what I expected. I hoped to get a better understanding of Hegel's life and work, but I left Taylor's book even more confused than when I started. Maybe I'll come back to this in the future, or maybe not. If anyone knows a better work on Hegel, please let me know.
January 15, 2025
O esforço que o autor empreendeu na intenção de abordar o pensamento hegeliano em sua completude, situando-o no seu contexto de formação, é algo assustadoramente incrível. Vale ressaltar também a ótima didática que, no caso de uma filosofia tão vertiginosa quanto esta, deve ser valorizada.
July 22, 2021
Taylor needed something that required ”published papers”. This is his +1 published paper. A dry rehash of the old texts of an overdone author.
November 14, 2021
A demanding but exhilarating read. One of the books that shaped my intellectual development. Writing about Hegel's dialectic is so often pompous and pretentious, or dry. Taylor makes complex and subtle ideas accessible.
May 28, 2016
Lots of interesting ideas, and provides god insights into Hegel and how Hegel relates to the modern world. Most of all this book made me interested in Charles Taylor as an insightful philosopher.
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