Abstract

This is another in the growing list of studies on Hegel’s Phenomenology. More specifically, it is designed for “the beginning student” and purports “to offer a reading which is less confusing than Hegel’s own text” and therefore uses “very little of Hegel’s terminology or style of writing”. After a brief introduction in which the general nature of Hegelian philosophy and some of its key ideas are presented, it goes on to discuss both the Preface and Hegel’s “Introduction” somewhat more critically before going on to deal with the successive sections of the Phenomenology from “Sense Certainty” to “Absolute Knowledge” somewhat more exegetically, as the author herself puts it. After the section on Reason and before that on Spirit, a special chapter on “The State” is inserted, which discusses a number of topics from Hegel’s Philosophy of Right by way of introduction to subsequent parts of the Phenomenology. Three chapters are then devoted to the section on Spirit, followed by two relatively short chapters on “Religion in General” and “Absolute Knowledge.” A brief bibliography is added which includes only a few of the better known works on Hegel, but none of these sources seems to have influenced Dudeck much in her reading. This is very much her own work on the Phenomenology and it has to be viewed as such. Whether one likes it or not, agrees with it or not, will depend on one’s own reading of Hegel’s Phenomenology and one’s own interpretation of its method.