Abstract

A revival of interest in Hegel is long overdue. Both the Analytic movement and the post-World War II access of interest in Existentialism resulted from a reaction against Hegelian idealism, but disagreement with a philosopher’s theories is no good reason for neglecting to study them - in fact, to disagree without knowledge is to risk serious error, and to criticize without understanding is merely to reveal lack of scholarship. It is therefore all to the good that attention should be drawn to Hegel’s writings, and Prof. Weiss has chosen an interesting way of doing this by writing a brief commentary on Hegel’s treatment, in the Lectures on the History of Philosophy, of Aristotle’s De Anima. This portion of Hegel’s writing is especially crucial for the understanding of his philosophy, for not only is he strongly influenced by Aristotle’s thought and, in a sense, himself the Aristotle of post-renaissance philosophy, but the conception of Mind or Spirit is the key notion of Hegel’s system, as ‘Ousia’ is that of Aristotle’s. Aristotle identifies this ultimately with pure activity, the realization of all potentiality, which is pure form without matter, the activity of God and of active reason in man; and this may be likened to Hegel’s Absolute Spirit.