Hegels Phenomenology of Spirit :: Philosophy Hegel Elephant Papers

Hegels Phenomenology of SpiritOne of the most difficult philosophical works forever written is Hegels Phenomenology of Spirit. In the interpolation to this work, Hegel attempts to aid his readers by describing the project that he carries out. But like so many things written by Hegel, the Introduction itself is formidable and very difficult to understand. In this paper, I attempt to lease sense of the Introduction and, thus, contribute to the understanding of the Phenomenology. To achieve this end, I take the grand liberty of comparing philosophers with blind men and Reality with an elephant. I take a series of claims made by Hegel in the Introduction and show how they make sense of his project once they are seen in the context of John Godfred Saxes poetry, The Blind Men and the Elephant. In doing so, I explain the coincidence of problems presented in the poem and the Phenomenology. Further, I show how the nature of both problems places the same kind of restrictions on anyone tr ying to overcome either. While Saxes poem urges an acceptance of the fact that total truth is always beyond your grasp, Hegels goal is to achieve such a truth. What you will see is that all the characteristics that would cave in stopped most philosophers and Saxe, become the means by which Hegel thinks he can ultimately achieve knowledge of the Elephant. One of the most difficult of the Great philosophic Works is Hegels Phenomenology of Spirit. As you read the book, you are caught in a maze of conflicting claims and you quickly become unsure of your footing. Is this Hegels throw mail or is it a characterization of the very positions that he is attacking? In fact, it is not long before you begin to wonder Where is Hegel in all this? If you free rein to the Introduction of the Phenomenology, you find that, even when Hegel attempts to be helpful, his explanations do not really throw much light.Now, because it has only phenomenal knowledge for its object, this exposition seems not to be Science, free and self-moving in its own peculiar shape yet from this standpoint it can be regarded as the path of the natural consciousness which presses forward-moving to true knowledge or as the way of the Soul which journeys through the series of its own configurations as though they were the stations appointed for it by its own nature, so that it may purify itself for the life of the Spirit, and achieve finally, through a completed experience of itself, the awareness of what is really is in itself.