Hegel: A Reinterpretation

by Walter Kaufmann

The continuing discovery of important Hegel manuscripts and advances in the criticism of Hegel's works have set the stage for a major reevaluation of one of the greatest philosophers of all time. This volume constitutes the comprehensive reinterpretation of Hegel that has long been needed. The first chapters are devoted to the influences of other German philosophers on Hegel, his early publication as they are relevant to his later writings, and his Phenomenology―in itself and as a key to understanding his terminology and dialectic. Examined next are the further elaboration of his thought in Logic; his famous system, as presented in various editions of the Encyclopedia; and his little-known views on history. A final chapter details in letters and contemporary reports Hegel's intellectual development.

Genres: Philosophy, History, Biography, Nonfiction, Germany

434 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1965

About the author

Walter Arnold Kaufmann was a German-American philosopher, translator, and poet. A prolific author, he wrote extensively on a broad range of subjects, such as authenticity and death, moral philosophy and existentialism, theism and atheism, Christianity and Judaism, as well as philosophy and literature. He served for over 30 years as a Professor at Princeton University.

He is renowned as a scholar and translator of Nietzsche. He also wrote a 1965 book on Hegel, and a translation of most of Goethe's Faust.

Reviews

[Adam · Rating 4 out of 5]

We don't always know it, but both the 20th century and America owe a debt of gratitude to Kaufmann's irreproachable translations and interpretations of German culture. His Hegel volume is exemplary in this regard: to one already versed in the annals of idealism it has little to offer except brevity and concision; to those seeking entry Kaufmann provides a guide that adroitly balances an uncompromising fidelity to the subject matter with the demand for popularization. I would hazard that within the humanities Kaufmann did for Nietzsche and Hegel what Fromm did for Marx and Freud. Both Kaufmann and Fromm allude to the complexity of their subjects without dragging the would-be neophyte down into it. There are plenty of other academic specialists ready to pad their vita with recondite disputes. Kaufmann is in fact explicit in stating the aim of his reinterpretation: by situating Hegel's texts within a loosely determinative biographical context, we are enabled to perceive them as responses to historical constellations rather than the dry abstractions which the incurious often assume them to be. Kaufmann's work remains impeccable not because it cannot be improved upon, but because it performs the critical task of presenting lay readership with a cogent summary that neither condescends nor banalizes. Academic fashions and flagging cultural literacy may have left much of Kaufmann's work in the ashcan of history, but so much the worse for us.

[Mesoscope · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kaufmann's study doesn't seem to be much referenced by the main line of Hegel scholarship these days, but I found it rather useful - especially for contextualizing Hegel's thought with respect to his biography, and the broader contemporary currents of German culture, such as his deep debt to Schiller.

Kaufmann's engagement with specific texts tends to be fairly short and scattershot, focusing primarily on the areas that interest him and mostly skipping large sections. It nevertheless is highly readable and contains a great many useful insights, even if it spends too much time critically engaging with the secondary literature.

In aggregate, like many scholars, Kaufmann finds Hegel brilliant but highly problematic. A sample critical comment from his analysis of the Phenomenology:

"What is wrong with Hegel's notion of what ought to be done can be stated here quite briefly. He assumes that philosophy requires a distinctive method of its own and sometimes writes as if he had such a method; but in fact, as we follow his procedure closely, we find that he does not."

And below:

"[Unlike many critics] I am by no means rejecting the dialectic in order to elect the system; I disbelieve both. And I am not so much rejecting the dialectic as I say: there is none. Look for it, by all means; see what Hegel says about it and observes what in fact he does. You will find some suggestive remarks, not all of them in the same vein, as well as all kinds of affectations; but you will not find any plain method that you could adopt even if you wanted to."

[Domhnall · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is written by Kaufmann to encourage us to read Hegel himself and it is largely concerned with explaining the defective scholarship which makes so many other writers unreliable in what they say about Hegel, both negatively and positively. A major factor is the poverty of good translations, for the many scholars unable to speak German, but there are also many whose grasp of the language is impeccable and who nevertheless have a very inadequate or a very prejudiced understanding of what Hegel actually did have to say. Of these, there are some, notably Marx and Kierkegaard, who construct a part of their own philosophy on their misrepresentations of Hegel, which Kaufmann reasonably suggests ought to undermine our confidence in what they have to say.

It might seem that more recent publications will have overcome the limitations and defects described by Kaufmann, whose 1965 book after all is now fifty years old. I have to say I do not think this is the case. The single example that struck me most forcefully is the continuing attribution to Hegel of a model for “dialectics” that is actually the work of his predecessor, Fichte, and which Hegel, to my amazement, explicitly and roughly rejects. The three stage model of Thesis, Antithesis and Synthesis is not Hegel’s and he did not either use it or approve of it.

It would not be in Hegel’s spirit to try to go back to him; but to take him seriously and go beyond him is not to betray him. [p12]

Hegel was one of the few philosophers who in several of his books offered us a vision of the world, worked out in considerable detail… Few will find their favourite philosopher in him; I for one do not. But there are few who offer us so much.” [p296]

Religion

...Kant remarked that he had done away with knowledge to make room for faith… while Hegel, like Plato and Aristotle, Spinoza and Leibniz, insists that precisely the divine and eternal are the proper subjects of philosophical enquiry and knowledge. … The understanding, which is glued to the finite, sees divine images only as idols that have eyes and do not see, and the sacred groves only as so much wood. But no reasonable person should look upon a Greek statue of Apollo in that spirit: reason must seek to comprehend the infinite in the finite, the eternal in what is here and now. Hegel opposes the philosophers who deny themselves the contemplation of the infinite and eternal, supposing that it dwells forever beyond reason; on the contrary, it is the task of reason and philosophy to contemplate the spirit in this world. [p99]

Writing Style: what to expect

The present volume is intended to help those who want to read Hegel. [p177]

Goethe complained to Eckermann, concerning Hegel’s baleful influence on the language of H.F.W.Hinrichs: ”What are the English and the French to think of the language of our philosophers when we Germans do not understand it ourselves?” [ p166]

In 1807 and 1808 Hegel edited a daily newspaper, The Bamberger Zeitung, “a far cry from the ivory tower in which posthumous reputation has placed him.” “He was forced to publish six times a week what ordinary people could understand,...he learned to be brief, to cover a lot of material concisely and to finish things.” [p184] However, “Hegel also had rather stuffy ideas about what was academically proper and “scientific,” and frequently his terminology … degenerates into a jargon that obscures his meaning instead of making it more precise. [p165] Just as some modern philosophers and literary critics, and a great many sociologists, give themselves scientific airs and say at length obscurely what might easily have been said briefly and clearly, Hegel too succumbed to this vice. .. [p166]

One of the better known early Hegelians, David Friedrich Strauss,... said: “One may fittingly call the Phenomenology the alpha and omega of Hegel’s works... All the later writings and lectures of Hegel, such as his Logic, Philosophy of Right, Philosophy of Religion, Aesthetics, History of Philosophy and Philosophy of History, … are merely sections from the Phenomenology whose riches are preserved only incompletely…” [p176]

I get the impression Kaufmann recommends us mainly to read the early works, Phenomenology and Logic, both highly praised. Page 253 gives a brisk overview of Hegel’s writing. The Logic, in its full form, is much more lucid than is usually supposed… Hegel’s philosophy of nature is not that important, nor is his treatment of subjective spirit. Hegel’s book on objective spirit, The Philosophy of Right, is available in a good English translation by T.M.Knox, .. supported by a wealth of informed notes. In a companion volume, Knox has also made available Hegel’s Political Writings. … On Hegel’s lectures on aesthetics and philosophy of religion, … these two cycles of lectures offer no insurmountable difficulties… But the same is not true of the lectures on the philosophy of history and the history of philosophy. ..[p253]

The Phenomenology of Spirit

The basic idea of the Phenomenology of Spirit is that a philosopher should not confine himself to views that have been held but penetrate behind these to the human reality they reflect. It is not enough to consider propositions, or even the content of consciousness; it is worthwhile to ask in every instance what kind of spirit would entertain such propositions, hold such views and have such a consciousness. Every outlook, in other words, is to be studied not merely as an academic possibility but as an existential reality. ..[p133]
...Hegel is fascinated by the sequence, how would a man come to see the world this way or that? And to what extent does the road on which a point of view is reached colour the view? Moreover, it should be possible to show how every single view in turn is one-sided and therefore untenable as soon as it is embraced consistently. Each must therefore give way to another, until finally the best and most comprehensive vision is attained in which all previous views are integrated… ...This is surely one of the most imaginative and poetic conceptions ever to have occurred to any philosopher. [p133-4]

To remain faithful to his conception, Hegel must never condemn any view from his own point of view, externally; his criticism must always be internal and consist in taking each view more seriously than its professed opponents take it. ..
… It does not seem to him that some of the views he considers are true and others false; but some are more mature than others, and one might try to arrange them in an ascending series according to their relative maturity. This does not mean that what comes later is always better and more attractive… But for all that there is a developmental sequence, Hegel seeks to reproduce it in Phenomenology.
...The idea is supremely suggestive and fascinating but, in the end, untenable…. The idea of arranging all significant points of view in such a single sequence, on a ladder that reaches from the crudest to the most mature, is as dazzling to contemplate as it is mad to try seriously to implement it.
...To sum up, the greatness of the Phenomenology lies both in its conception, which is in part brilliant and fruitful, and in a lot of its detail; but some aspects of the conception are absurd and some of the details bizarre. [p.149]

Dialectics

“There is a legend abroad that students of Hegel must choose in the end between the system and the dialectic, and it is widely supposed that the right wing Hegelians chose the system while the left wing, or the “young” Hegelians, including Marx, chose the dialectic. But I am by no means rejecting the dialectic in order to elect the system; I disbelieve them both. And I am not so much rejecting the dialectic as I say: there is none. Look for it by all means; see what Hegel says about it and observe what in fact he does. You will find some suggestive remarks, not all of them in the same vein, as well as all kinds of affectations; but you will not find any plain method that you could adopt if you wanted to.” [p173]

...to return to Hegel himself: what do we find if not a usable dialectical method? We find a vision of the world, of man, and of history which emphasizes development through conflict, the moving power of human passions, which produce wholly unintended results and the irony of sudden reversals. If that be called a dialectical method, then Hegel’s philosophy was dialectical - and there is a great deal to be said in it favour. This is certainly an immensely fruitful and interesting perspective and from the point of view of pedagogy, vivid exposition, and sheer drama, it may be unsurpassed. But the fateful myth that this perspective is reducible to a rigorous method that even permits predictions deserves no quarter, though by now half the world believes it. [pp 174-175]

The fact the Hegel himself never used the dialectic to prove anything, and actually spurned the very idea that it could be used that way, suggests plainly that Hegel’s dialectic never was conceived as what we call a scientific method, and that his deductions were admittedly ex post facto. In other words, Hegel’s dialectic is at most a method of exposition; it is not a method of discovery.” [pp 174,175]

The change from young Hegel to Mature Hegel Explained

In the fall of 1808, Hegel became principal of the Gymnasium at Nuremberg. His duties explicitly included instruction in philosophy; and he retained this position for eight years ….. he had to make clear philosophy for students in their teens who were not specializing in the subject. The way in which he tried to solve this problem became the pattern for his Encyclopedia and Philosophy of Right.
He aimed at clear outlines that could be easily remembered, at great brevity, and at definitiv formulations. The organisation henceforth becomes neat to a fault - triads everywhere (but not thesis, antithesis and synthesis). Brevity coupled with the desire to say a great deal in few words leads to reliance on jargon and a style that borders on the oracular. And the attempt to give his students definitive formulations, coupled with the fact that the boys were nowhere near his level, introduced a decidedly dogmatic note into Hegel’s prose.
...In his youth he was a firebrand whose vitriolic criticisms of Christianity invite comparison with Nietzsche… He wrote with passion and vigor and his sarcasm was radical. … His first big book … was a Faustian book, wild, bold and more than a little mad. … The Logik, in three volumes, still breathes at least some of the spirit of the Phenomenology…
...Anyone who seriously compares Hegel before the age of forty with the Professor Hegel of the last fifteen years of his life is bound to ask: whatever became of him? We can now answer that question in a single sentence: for eight long years the poor man was the headmaster of a German secondary school. [pp185-6]

The State

Hegel’s relatively high estimate of the state depends on his belief that the development of art, religion, and philosophy, and their cultivation, depend on the state. Given the state, which provides the framework for the development of a culture, the continuity of cultural traditions, of language, education and techniques, as well as the necessary security, an individual can occasionally form himself in solitude, but Hegel himself remarks that even it this should be the rule, it would not show that the state was altogether dispensable. [p252]

”In order to establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty,” those who framed and ratified the Constitution of the United States of America did not find it expedient or at all possible to replace British rule with anarchy, a return to nature and the abolition of all states and all restraints; they established a state. That men who revere their constitution and learn this preamble by heart as children should find Hegel’s association of the state with freedom perverse and talk as if it were self evident that the state merely abridges our natural freedom is a triumph of thoughtlessness, which illustrates the bankruptcy of any common sense that prides itself on spurning philosophy. [p270]

History

That history is the story of the development of human freedom is the central idea of Hegel’s philosophy of history. This is its heart, and all the rest receives its blood from it. [p255]
He tried to show himself and others that the indubitably monstrous sufferings recorded throughout history had not been altogether for nothing. There is something we can show in return for all this, though it cannot balance all the misery: while even Plato and Aristotle, not to speak of the sages of India, did not know that man as such was free, this was now widely recognised, thought it might still take considerable time before such freedom would be fully actualized. [p256-7]

Hegel did not have an optimistic idea that we have learned so much from our history that we can avoid tragedy: “What experience and history teach is this: peoples and governments have never learned anything from history and acted according to what one might have learned from it.” [p258]

”..the study of the history of philosophy is study of philosophy itself.” In getting this firmly established, Hegel made a major contribution to intellectual history - and actually helped to create intellectual history as a field of scholarship. [p285]

“Every philosophy … belongs to its time and is biassed by its limitations. The individual is the son of his people, his world. He may put on airs as much as he pleases, he does not go beyond.” [p286]

…. it makes good sense and is by no means merely an ironic point to say that wisdom consists in realizing how many beliefs are false and that the history of philosophy, as the love of wisdom, has been a progressive disillusionment. [p88]

Hegel Misrepresented

Marx accepted a great deal from Hegel - especially what he took to be his dialectic, though he claimed that Hegel’s idealism turned things upside down. As a matter of fact, Hegel’s dialectic never was the rigorous method that Marx and his followers sought to make of it, and this we have tried to show in this book. By depriving it of its primary reference to ideas and applying it instead to modes of production, one cannot make the dialectic more precise, nor materialism “scientific.” On the contrary, ideas are at least capable of being literally contradicted and then subsumed in a higher synthesis, while any dialectic of modes of production or material circumstances is bound to be utterly lacking in rigor. The fact that Marxism further claims that the dialectic can be used to make predictions - Hegel never did and, on the contrary, insisted that philosophy must confine itself to the present and past - has led Marxism much further in the direction of pseudo scientific rigor than Hegel himself ever went. But the fact that MArxism is in this respect intellectually indefensible obviously does not enable us to ignore it; and those who wish to comprehend it must study Hegel. [p287]

”One cannot completely comprehend Marx’s Capital and especially the first chapter, unless one has studied and comprehended the whole of Hegel’s Logic. Consequently, after half a century not one of the Marxists has comprehended Marx.” Thus wrote Lenin. [p288]

William James polemicized against Hegel again and again, but hardly knew Hegel ….would have found an enthusiastic ally in Hegel. [p288]

Even more than Marx, Kierkegaard saw himself in revolt against Hegel; unlike Marx, he was not clearly aware how much he had taken from the man he fought… Kierkegaard’s attacks were not based on his own reading of Hegel and were usually as wide of the mark as his remarks about Goethe. His image of Hegel was derived from the lectures of the old Schelling who had developed a profound resentment when hegel’s fame eclipsed his own.” [p289]

End Note

I have drastically pruned my original compilation of quotes but this much I am not inclined to lose. There is so much more to be found - I heartily recommend this lucid and often entertaining guide to Hegel.

[Erik Graff · Rating 5 out of 5]

Walter Kaufmann was one of the great popularizers of western philosophy and probably best known as the foremost translater of Nietzsche into English. Less known, but every bit as readable as his biography of Nietzsche, is his book on Hegel, another neo-Kantian, and, like Kant and unlike Nietzsche, a formidable system-builder. If Hegel is intimidating, check out this sensible appropriation of him, the proceed.

[Erik Graff · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is an exposition of Hegel's philosophy organized chronologically with translations of the preface to his Phenomenology and his essay, "Who Thinks Abstractly?" As in his many commentaries about Nietzsche, Kaufmann is at pains to smooth the rough edges, explaining Hegel's thought constructively and sympathetically. As in those commentaries, he does a very good job, Hegel being perhaps the most ambitious of all the great Germanic universal system builders.

[Will · Rating 1 out of 5]

As with Kaufmann's pedantic Goethe, Kant, Hegel, this book suffers from an obsessive interest in the ever-changing table of contents for successive editions of its subject's books. Page after page are given over to analysis of the TOC for Hegel's Logic, without virtually any analysis of its content. This is all pretty hilarious since not even thirty pages into the Phenomenology's Preface does Hegel satirize the Understanding as "in its pigeon-holing process... it can never hope to learn more... than one can learn from a table of contents. A table of contents is all that it offers, the content itself it does not offer at all."

[Larry · Rating 1 out of 5]

Whatever you are looking for, this is not the book for you. I kept waiting for the moment when Kaufmann would engage with Hegels ideas and it never came. Instead, I learned everything about his boy years, that he liked to laugh, enjoyed coffee and had a special relationship to his sister. When you think about it it’s quite an achievement to write 400 pages on the dude without ever getting any further than that

[Bruce · Rating 3 out of 5]

Walter Kaufmann is always an engaging, stimulating writer about philosophy, but this was too protracted and diffuse to be an effective introduction to Hegel's thought. It is almost certain, however, to have valuable insights that I will come back to later.

[Garrett Dunnington · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ironically I can appreciate Hegel as a systematic philosopher.

[Steven H · Rating 5 out of 5]

DID HEGEL REALLY USE THE "DIALECTIC" OF THESIS, ANTITHESIS, AND SYNTHESIS?

Walter Arnold Kaufmann (1921-1980) was a German-American philosopher, translator, and poet, who taught for over 30 years at Princeton University. He wrote many other books, such as 'Critique of Religion and Philosophy,' 'Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist,' etc.

This book is paired with 'Hegel: Texts and Commentary,' and both works were previously published as a single volume. Kaufmann wrote in the Preface to this book, "The aim of this book is as simple as its execution is difficult: to establish a comprehensive reinterpretation of Hegel---not just one facet of his thought but of the whole phenomenon of Hegel... Since 1905 a great deal of new material has come to light, including many important Hegel manuscripts as well as letters and documents. Most of it has never been translated into English, and British and American monographs on Hegel have persistently ignored it."

Of Hegel's Logic, he observes, "the Logic is nothing else than Hegel's comprehensive analysis of philosophical Concepts and their relations to each other." (Pg. 72)

He observes that "The preface to 'The Phenomenology of Mind' is full of excellent aphorisms... To be sure, they are buried in mammoth paragraphs to forestall any popular appeal... the appearance of the pages is forbidding enough to frighten away browsers. But the reader who perseveres is brought up short every now and then by a striking epigram. The pity is that Hegel, too, is brought up short, shocked at his own unscientific manner, and intent on making amends immediately. But after a while it happens again... Many a witty observation or fine formulation is successfully concealed in a long sentence where even the few readers who find it are likely to mutter something like `couldn't be' and go on." (Pg. 100-101)

He makes the significant observation, "Fichte introduced into German philosophy the three-step of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis; using these three terms, Schelling took up this terminology; Hegel did not. He never once used these three terms together to designate three stages of an argument or account in any of his books... Whoever looks for the stereotype of the allegedly Hegelian dialectic in Hegel's Phenomenology will not find it. What one does find on looking at the table of contents is a very decided preference for triadic arrangements... But these many triads are not presented or deduced by Hegel as so many theses, antitheses, and syntheses. It is not by means of any dialectic of that sort that his thought moves up the ladder to absolute knowledge." (Pg. 154-155)

He notes, "There is s legend abroad that the student of Hegel must choose in the end between the system and the dialectic, and it is widely supposed that the right wing Hegelians chose the system while the left wing, or the `young' Hegelians, including Marx, chose the dialectic. But I am by no means rejecting the dialectic in order to elect the system; I disbelieve both. And I am not so much rejecting the dialectic as I say: there is none. Look for it, by all means; see what Hegel says about it and observe what in fact he does. You will find some suggestive remarks, not all of them in the same vein, as well as all kinds of affectations; but you will not find any plain method that you could adopt even if you wanted to." (Pg. 160)

He also clarifies that in Philosophy of Right, "Hegel does NOT present Prussia as the culmination of the historical process, and his construction of world history does not depend on any such implicit assumption. That Germany was, during Hegel's lifetime, in the forefront of Western civilization seems undeniable; but Hegel does not say that Germany represents the pinnacle of the historical process. He merely believes, and wants to show, that for all its many ups and downs there has been a slow and painful development to the point... that all men as such are free. And he understands world history as the gradual development of this recognition." (Pg. 260)

He also suggests of Hegel's 'Philosophy of History,' "most of the passages that have given offense come from the students' notes, not from Hegel's manuscript." (Pg. 267)

Kaufmann's "reinterpretations" are sometimes at odds with those of other scholars; but this is a fascinating and stimulating volume that will be of immense interest to anyone seriously studying Hegel.

[August Denys · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have for a while now tried to read some of Hegel's work. I have a copy of his Phenomenology of Spirit I have found copies of his Science of Logic on the internet, however, I have always paused while reading his work. Most of the pauses were due to feeling inadequate in order to tackle the things present in the text, yet one of the things that has preoccupied my own mind that caused to to pick up this book on Hegel is what in Hegel made the term "Dialectic" so prevalent. As I found this book in my local library which only had five other books in its philosophy section, with a strange copy of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason that was only of the 1st edition, what caught my eye and made me get a new library card was Kaufmann's chronological narrative of Hegel's works which included a chapter on his Phenomenology and a final section simply titled "Dialectic." While I did start with that Section, I went back and read the entire book, even to reread that section again. In doing this I discovered two things about the book: the first, that I didn't notice when first checking it out, is that it contains a copy of Hegel's Preface to his Phenomenology fully translated by Kaufmann with a commentary; the second, and perhaps more pressing discovery, is that Kaufmann does not interpret the work of Hegel, rather, he sets up this book to show the development of Hegel and to provide a guide to how one might read Hegel. So, while I could ask that the publisher should take the section on the Preface translated by Kaufmann and make that into its own book, I would say that a person who reads this could take away the courage to read Hegel.

[jacob · Rating 4 out of 5]

hard for me to evaluate bc i havent read hegel in length and i read this expressly to avoid reading hegel at length. kaufmann is intelligible and intelligent and i find his cautioning against the myth of hegel to be well taken.

it is intriguing that many of the stereotypes kaufmann attempts to dispell persist still in our hegelian narrative. it makes it difficult to interpret other works that use what kaufmann designates as a “misinterpretation,” though, and i’m not sure what to do with that fact.

[Colt Hutchinson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tragic that this text seems to have fallen out of recent Hegel scholarship/reference. While I depart from Kaufmann’s interpretation on many crucial points, he does a remarkable job challenging some of the most pernicious myths about Hegel and his ‘method’ (many of which are still being regurgitated by so-called ‘Hegelians’). Moreover, Kaufmann provides an excellent overview of Hegel’s development and influences, something which is often overlooked in other commentaries.

[Ankh156 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Exhaustive and good. The new translation of the preface to the Phenomenology is particularly useful. Give an overview of the System, and a portrait of the man.

[Miguel Angel · Rating 2 out of 5]

Excesivamente complejo y en mi caso quería explorar a Hegel desde una perspectiva más didáctica y compresiva . Sólo para mentes que les encante dar vueltas y vueltas al mismo párrafo.

[Alex Nelson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a good, easy read --- something to read before going to bed. Kaufmann provides his interpretation of Hegel, and some biographical background. The book is not technical, and consequently is not a substitute for other commentaries (or Hegel's writings). To Kaufmann's credit, he has an enlightening discussion of the influences and contemporaries who impacted Hegel (Kant, Jacobi, Fichte, Schelling, among others).

But Kaufmann does not adequately treat Hegel's relation to Christianity. What exactly "God" means for Hegel is undiscussed, which is unfortunate. True, Kaufmann discusses Hegel's earlier anti-Christian works, and a few other minor discussions.

Further I'm unconvinced about Kaufmann's skepticism regarding whether Hegel believes in a dialectical method or not. Kaufmann's argument boils down to "See, look at these examples [a lot of translations inserted]. Do you see thesis-antithesis-synthesis? True, there are triads, but no thesis-antithesis-synthesis. Case. Closed."

For another review of this book, I found this one quite illuminating.