Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences

The Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences in Outline is a 1817 published in Heidelberg work of the German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel ( 1770-1831 ). It contains its designed as a comprehensive system and philosophy was conceived as a compendium of lectures at the same time.

It is one of the masterpieces of German idealism, which deals in particular with issues of metaphysics and ontology as the " Divine Absolute " and the "idea", but also with the totality of reality and knowable. The Hegelian dialectic is shown here.

1827 appeared the second, almost twice as thick edition, 1830, the third, again revised edition. Today's reprints (such as in the popular edition by Suhrkamp ) are based on this third edition, augmented by the "add-ons ", which added the " friends of the departed " from manuscripts and student transcripts of lectures. The additives are problematic according to the present philological standards.

Great influence had this writing on the philosophy of life and the neo-Kantianism; also be translated many famous thinkers - among others Bakunin (1814-1876), Charles S. Peirce (1839-1914), Benedetto Croce (1866-1952) and Giovanni Gentile (1875-1944) - intensively with her.

Content structure

The " Encyclopedia " has three main parts:

The whole is next prefaces preceded by an introduction which, inter alia, "Three positions of thought to objectivity " contains. In this section, Hegel justifies his dialectical method and assigns it a philosophy - history.

Science of Logic

Hegel derives his world view of " the dialectical movement of the concept " (§ 415) ago. The term is not only element of individual thinking, but all bringing forth primal force. The logic now is the science in which the term, figuratively speaking, " at home".

This first part of the " Encyclopedia " is to make the people come of age the tool and the blocks are available, with which existing and passing can be realized in nature and spirit.

The following table should make the structure of the logical science clearly.

The Science of Nature

In Hegel's dialectic nature is the other of the spirit. On the Nature of the inorganic, the reader is led to the living, which finds its completion in the mind. The following table shows the three departments of natural philosophy, which are again subdivided in triplicate. In addition, content priorities will be outlined.

The philosophy of nature is a problematic part of his system, which has several reasons:

• Many scientific discoveries were at the beginning of the 19th century not yet won.
• Many natural phenomena have not yet been clarified, so that eg Goethe's color theory was considered a serious scientific model.
• Hegel's Elements - concept is based on the view of antiquity, though he of course knows the chemical term.
• When reading is to be noted that the meaning of some terms has changed historically. They must therefore be translated into today's terminology.
• The approach to derive everything from the self-movement of the concept is problematic: Either the term is not yet developed properly, or the approach itself is inappropriate.

The science of the mind

The philosophy of mind, the third part of the " Encyclopedia " is divided into three sections:

Expenditure

• By his own hand: 1817 2 A. 1827 3 A. 1830
• Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel: Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences, Bd.e 1-3. Editor: Eva Moldenhauer, Karl Markus Michel. Frankfurt am Main, 1970, Suhrkamp. ISBN 3-518-09718-0