Prolegomena to the Study of Hegel's Philosophy, and Especially of His Logic — John Shaqi
Prolegomena to the Study of Hegel's Philosophy, and Especially of His LogicWallace, William
Philosophy
Prolegomena to the Study of Hegel's Philosophy, and Especially of His Logic
Wallace, William
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 1770-1831; Logic
to be true and adequate: and that verification fills up the whole
circle of circles, of which philosophy is said to consist.
It seems as if there were in Hegel two distinct habits of mind which
the world--the outside observer--rarely sees except in separation.
On one hand there is a sympathy with mystical and intuitional minds,
with the upholders of immediate knowledge and of innate ideas, with
those who find that science and demonstration rather tend to distract
from the one thing needful--who would 'lie in Abraham's bosom all the
year,'--those who would fain lay their grasp upon the whole before they
have gone through the drudgery of details. On the other hand, there
is within him a strongly 'rationalising' and non-visionary intellect,
with a practical and realistic bent, and the full scientific spirit.
Schelling, in an angry mood, could describe him as 'the quintessence
of all that is prosaic, both outside and in[1].' Yet, seen from other
points of view, Hegel has been accused of dreaminess, pietism, and
mystical theology. His merging of the ordinary contrasts of thought
in a completer truth, and what would popularly be described as his
mixing up of religious with logical questions, and the general
unfathomableness of his doctrine,--all seem to support such a charge.
Yet all this is not inconsistent with a rough and incisive vigour
of understanding, a plainness of reason, and a certain hardness of
temperament. This philosopher is in many ways not distinguishable from
the ordinary citizen, and there are not unfrequent moments when his
wife hears him groan over the providence that condemned him to be a
philosopher[2]. He is contemptuous towards all weakly sentimentalism,
and almost brutal in his emphasis on the reasonableness of the actual
and on the folly of dreaming the might-have-been; and keeps his
household accounts as carefully as the average head of a family. And,
perhaps, this convergence of two tendencies of thought may be noticed
in the gradual maturing of his ideas. In the period of his 'Lehrjahre,'
or apprenticeship, from 1793 to 1800, we can see the study of religion
in the earlier part of that time at Bern succeeded by the study of
politics and philosophy at Frankfort-on-the-Main.
His purpose on the whole may be termed an attempt to combine breadth
with depth, the intensity of the mystic who craves for union with
Truth, with the extended range and explicitness of those who multiply
knowledge. 'The depth of the mind is only so deep as its courage
to expand and lose itself in its explication[3]. It must prove its
profundity by the ordered fullness of the knowledge which it has
realised. The position and the work of Hegel will not be intelligible
unless we keep in view both of these antagonistic points.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account