Lectures on the Philosophy of Spirit 1827-8

Hegel’s lectures have had as great a historical impact as the works he himself published. Important elements of his system are elaborated only in the lectures, especially those given in Berlin during the last decade of his life. The original editors conflated materials from different sources and dates, obscuring the development and logic of Hegel’s thought. The Hegel Lectures series is based on a selection of extant and recently discovered transcripts and manuscripts. The original lecture series are reconstructed so that the structure of Hegel’s argument can be followed. Each volume presents an accurate new translation accompanied by an editorial introduction and annotations on the text, which make possible the identification of Hegel’s many allusions and sources.

Lectures on the Philosophy of Spirit 1827-8
Robert Williams provides the first full view of Hegel’s Philosophy of Subjective Spirit in his translation of this recently discovered manuscript. Hegel’s lectures of 1827 go far beyond the previously published Encyclopedia outline, and provide a new introduction to the Philosophy of Spirit. Since they come from a single source, they are not editorial constructions like the previously published supplemental materials (Zusaetze). The new material provides the only explicit grounding of the concept of right presupposed by the Philosophy of Right, grounds Hegel’s account of the virtues in love and mutual recognition, gives further insight into Hegel’s theory of madness/dementia, and elaborates Hegel’s difficult account of the role of mechanical memory in transcendental deduction of objectivity. The edition should stimulate and open up interest in Hegel’s Philosophy of Spirit, a neglected area in Hegel scholarship, but one to which Hegel himself attached special importance and significance.