Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion: The Lectures of 1827

by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

From the complete three-volume critical edition of Hegel's Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion , this edition extracts the full text and footnotes of the 1827 lectures, making the work available in a convenient form for study. Of the lectures that can be fully reconstructed, those of 1827 are the clearest, the maturest in form, and the most accessible to nonspecialists. In them, readers will find Hegel engaged in lively debates and in important refinements of his treatment of the concept of religion, the Oriental religions and Judaism, Christology, the Trinity, the God-world relationship, and many other topics.

This edition contains a new editorial introduction as well as critical annotations on the text and tables, bibliography, and glossary from the complete edition. The result of an international collaborative effort on the part of Walter Jaeschke, Ricardo Ferrara, and Peter C. Hodgson, the new edition is appearing simultaneously in German, English, and Spanish. The English edition has been prepared by a team consisting of Robert F. Brown (University of Delaware), Peter C. Hodgson (Vanderbilt University), and J. Michael Stewart (Farnham, England), with the assistance of H. S. Harris (York University).

Genres: Philosophy, Theology, Religion, Nonfiction

576 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1831

About the author

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) was a German philosopher and one of the founding figures of German Idealism. Influenced by Kant's transcendental idealism and Rousseau's politics, Hegel formulated an elaborate system of historical development of ethics, government, and religion through the dialectical unfolding of the Absolute. Hegel was one of the most well-known historicist philosopher, and his thought presaged continental philosophy, including postmodernism. His system was inverted into a materialist ideology by Karl Marx, originally a member of the Young Hegelian faction.

Reviews

[Max Stoffel-Rosales · Rating 3 out of 5]

Full of impenetrable tautologies and thinly-veiled mysticism (of the highly readable kind). But then, if you have a face like old Hegel had, you’d better be as interesting to talk to as possible.

The editor has done an admirable job in making some of the author’s ideas slightly more comprehensible to the layperson.

[Cassidy Brinn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This and The Brothers Karamazov are the two books which have most influenced my life in a single stroke.

[Naele]

بررسی و تحلیل:
تاثیر وارد شدن مذهب در نظام
تاثیر تبدیل مذهب به یک دولت و تسلط او بر مردم
شناخته شدن مذهب در زندگی اجتماعی به عنوان یک وظیفه و امر مانند هنگامی که در عزاداری خود را موظف به گریه می دانیم.
و در انتها عقیده هگل بر جدایی دین و مذهب است و اینکه مذهب به عقل احترام نمی گذارد و به نوعی می خواهد به صورت مکانیکی عقل را از کودکی طبق خواسته خود تربیت دهد.
یک منبع و مقاله خوب.

[Vinay Sharma · Rating 5 out of 5]

Evil is a propellant. Insane, but so sick lol. Teleology can only get you so far; that being said, my radical materialism may be waning.. he may be more right that we’d like to admit. The Deluzians have their adversary

["Nico" · Rating 4 out of 5]

This single volume edition of the more complete lectures is still dense enough that it should put off casual readers, but if you're looking to improve your understanding of Hegel and/or the philosophy of religion, this is for you.

These lectures take as their launching point the mediate nature of our relationship to God ('absolute truth') and what this means for the philosophy of religion as a whole, but particularly to Christianity. Hegel calls his approach 'Speculative Philosophy', it takes reason be the ground for theological speculation into the divine and our relationship to it. So, for instance, Hegel says of Athena that she isn't the goddess of a city, but the living, actual spirit of the Athenian people. When Athena is worshipped, it is humanity that reveals itself: divinity is revealed in the songs of worshippers, and celebrated in honored artists, because the cultus (the faith community) is the god imbued with life. So (I add) it would be a mistake to see the Greek gods as primitive tokens of outmoded belief when it is their very humanity that makes clear the relationship between us and the divine.

This approach has seen Hegel derided as an atheist, but his point is that in every formulation of religion, this rational content is already THE content of the religion. This is a maximalist interpretation, but I will stress that to dismiss this approach entirely is impossible, because even the minimalist interpretation of this work is that it is an inextricable element in any religion, theology, or spirituality. There are major, critical consequences of this, but they are too expansive to get into here.

This represents one of Hegel's mature works, so readers of Hegel may be surprised to discover that he is much clearer in his presentation here than his more famous works, like the Phenomenology or either of his Logics. Especially, spirit and its movement is made (relatively) straightforward. For non-readers of Hegel, I apologize in advance if this got your hopes up too much, but I promise this is much more straightforward than his other works.

Peter Hodgson's editing is thorough and meticulate. Different transcriptions of the text are regularly included in the footnotes, which adds tremendously to the reading but you shouldn't feel obliged to read all of them, the footnotes are often longer than the page itself and are there for additional context. The editorial introduction is remarkable, it is long but absolutely worth it, Hodgson knows his stuff.

The obvious caveat made for us in the editor's introduction is that Hegel, working in 1827, is working at a time when accurate (and non-eurocentric) accounts of many of these religions were not accessible. So his knowledge of certain religions is notably (and noticeably) poorer than those ready-at-hand in Europe. Don't let this discourage you too much—in every case his (un)hidden agenda is to use these accounts to talk about subjectivity—but do keep it in mind.

In short, I *highly* recommend this book if and only if it addresses you, if you find it relevant to your studies or interests. Do not expect it to be easy, expect it to be worth the effort.

[Pablo · Rating 4 out of 5]

It took 15 weeks. Painstaking reading, rereading, and more rereading – but it was worth it. Hegel is an incredibly systematic philosopher, whose internal logic is well argued and compelling. Although his interpretation of world religions and Christian triumphalism is all serious cause for concern, it's hard not to admire his internal consistency. After reading Hegel you will begin to notice how influential his dialectic has been on modern thought – you'll hear intonations of Hegel's ghost in the most unlikely places (It's really fun).

[Chris Nagel · Rating 3 out of 5]

The butler did it.

[ZaRi · Rating 4 out of 5]

اگر خواست ادیان، بهبود وضعیت اخلاقی است پس چرا باید بر عقاید و آداب خاص یک دین تعصب داشت و اینهمه بر شریعت تاکید کرد؟ در کتاب «استقرار شریعت در مذهب مسیح» به نسبت شریعت با اخلاق در دین مسیحی بطور خاص توجه شده است. هگل، عیسی را فردی معرفی می‌کند که در مقابل آموزه‌ها و شریعت سختگیرانه و خشک یهود قیام کرد و یادآور شد که هدف اصلی از شریعت نیز اعتلای اخلاقی بوده است. او در برابر علمای یهود می‌گفت که بزرگترین قانون انبیا دوست داشتن خدا و محبت به انسانها است. اما تعالیم اخلاقی و رهایی بخش مسیح نیز در طول زمان تبدیل به قوانین خشک شد و خود بصورت شریعت تازه‌ای درآمد. هگل ریشهٔ این مشکل را نخست در ذهنیت یهودی پیروان مسیح و همچنین تا حدی در آموزه‌های شخص عیسی می‌داند. عیسی که در فضای یهودی موعظه می‌کرد مجبور بود سخنانش را به متون دینی مانند تورات ارجاع دهد پس به نوعی در کنار آموزه‌های اخلاقی، مرجعیت دینی نیز مطرح می‌شد. همچنین اعمالی که مسیح بعنوان معجزه انجام می‌داد باعث شد تا شخص عیسی از آموزه‌های اخلاقی او جایگاه بالاتری در نگاه مردم پیدا کند و سپس پیروان یهودی او نیز مواعظ اخلاقی عیسی را نه بعنوان آموزه‌ها و پیامهایی که به خودی خود درست‌اند بلکه از آن جهت پذیرفتند که متعلق به شخص عیسی بود. از همینجا بود که مرجعیت دینی و شریعت در دین مسیح ریشه کرد و کلیسا را پدید آورد. کلیسا پیروی از مسیح را تبدیل به آموزه‌ها و آداب خشک ساخت و خود بعنوان یک نهاد، مرجعیت آنرا بعهده گرفت در حالیکه این بر ضد آزادی‌ای بود که انتخاب اخلاقی نیازمند آن است.

[ArEzO.... Es · Rating 5 out of 5]

استقرار شريعت در مذهب مسيح»يكي از آثار دوره جواني هگل محسوب مي‌شود كه درباره الاهيات نوشته شده است
و بايد چند بار مطلب را فكر كرد تا بتواني براي خواندن ادامه بدهي

[Grant Francis · Rating 4 out of 5]

So close, but so far away

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't appreciate how he makes God a being inside of nature and not someone you can pray to but an ideal. I call heresy but others call heterodoxy.