Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit Not Missing

In most commentaries on Hegel's Phenomenology, the emphasis has been on presenting the totality as a chain of phenomenological developments leading up inexorably to the final chapter on "absolute knowledge." In other words, the mission of the commentator has been to make sure that the reader does not miss the forest for the trees, as the saying goes'¬ ;getting so wrapped up in individual moments that he or she misses the all-important dialectical movement of the work. The present work is a reflection on some of the "trees" that are of interest in their own right, and keys to the ongoing appreciation of this classical work'¬ ;for example, why language (die Sprache) performs an indispensable function in Hegel's concept of phenomenological development; how the groundbreaking theme of intersubjectivity emerges in this work; why character-types like Hegel's "Unhappy Consciousness" and "Knight of Virtue" have a contemporary relevance; what influence the Phenomenology had on Kierkegaard; why what appear to be mere summaries and recapitulations in the Phenomenology are much more than that; why the literary aspects of this philosophical work should not be overlooked; and why Hegel's "absolute knowledge" is not absolute in any of the usual senses of the word.

Howard P. Kainz is professor of philosophy at Marquette University.

Preface	p. ix
The Phenomenon of Language in Hegel's Phenomenology	p. 1
Language vs. Meaning in Sense-Certainty	p. 2
Language Expressing the Discrepancy between Inner and Outer	p. 4
Law, as the Universal Language for Social Consciousness	p. 4
The Language of Flattery, Creating What it Extols	p. 5
The Language of Disintegration, Recording Cultural Contradictions	p. 7
Enlightened Freedom and the Revolutionary Inhibition of Language	p. 8
Conscience as Necessarily Expressed in Language	p. 9
Expressions of Conscience leading to Moral Relativism	p. 10
Non-expression of Conscience leading to Moral Disintegration	p. 11
Expressions of Mutual Forgiveness and the Emergence of Absolute Spirit	p. 12
Classical Literature as Gathering Together the Dispersed and Scattered Moments of the Inner Essential World and the World of Action	p. 12
Character Types in the Phenomenology	p. 17
The Master Consumer	p. 17
The Unhappy Consciousness	p. 20
The Disillusioned Hedonist	p. 22
The Moral Sentimentalist	p. 23
The Knight of Virtue	p. 24
Prestigious v. Disreputable Consciousness-Types	p. 25
The Revolutionary	p. 27
The Beautiful Soul	p. 30
Phenomenological Themes	p. 33
Heraclitean Flux	p. 33
Intersubjectivity	p. 37
Rational Reality	p. 39
Invalidity of Kant's Categorical Imperative	p. 40
Natural Law	p. 42
Victory by Social Osmosis	p. 43
The Church of Consciences	p. 44
The Fulfillment of Religion in Philosophy	p. 47
Kierkegaard and the Phenomenology	p. 51
Borrowings	p. 53
Speech as oriented exclusively towards universality	p. 53
Stoical withdrawal into self	p. 54
An Interesting Parallel	p. 55
Reinterpretations	p. 55
The Three Stages	p. 55
Determinate Negation	p. 56
Faith	p. 57
The "Task"	p. 58
The Unhappy Consciousness	p. 59
Transformation of a Servile Consciousness	p. 60
The "outer" as expression of the "inner"	p. 61
Sensuality as a result of Christianity	p. 62
The Knight of Faith	p. 63
Hegel's Unsystematic Systematization	p. 65
Haering's Thesis	p. 65
Discernments of Unity	p. 66
Hegel's Intermittent Recapitulations: Labarriere's Analysis	p. 68
Hegel's Major Recapitulations	p. 71
The Final Emerging Organizational Patterns	p. 78
The Phenomenology and Literature	p. 81
Literature Incorporated in the Phenomenology	p. 81
The Phenomenology Developing a Philosophy of Literature	p. 83
The Phenomenology as Literature	p. 84
Hegel as Story-Teller	p. 86
Literary Devices Utilized by Hegel	p. 88
Irony	p. 88
Paradox	p. 91
Metaphor	p. 91
Syzygy	p. 92
Anomalies	p. 95
Humor and Satire	p. 98
"Absolute Knowledge" and the History of Modern Philosophy	p. 99
Interpretations of Absolute Knowledge	p. 100
The Importance of the Subject-Object Problematic	p. 101
The Emergence of Absolute Knowledge from Modern Philosophy	p. 103
Absolute Knowledge as the Golden Mean Between Philosophical Extremes	p. 108
Works Consulted	p. 111
Index	p. 115
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Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit Not Missing the Trees for the Forest

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