Why Do We Read Hegel?

A Personal Response
by Robbert A. Veen,
Huizen, the Netherlands
© 2009

You can make a delicate and complex argument why it is necessary to understand
Hegel's philosophy. You can write about the importance of his logic, his dialectics, to
the understanding of human communication and social institutions. You can show
elaborately how Hegel was the first to understand the nature of modern society, and
construct a critical position on current issues from his philosophy of right. And even
though we have found Hegel to be incorrect in many of his positions on the natural
sciences and history, the way he constructed a philosophy of nature and the history of
the Spirit is still exemplary in many ways. Even if you cannot find all of this in
Hegel, it's still a good thing to know about him anyway, because so many
contemporary philosophers have taken his insights as a starting point. Slavoj Zizek is
certainly the best known of them, but you could also mention Jacques Derrida,
Vittorio Hoessle and many others.

The complexity of Hegel is fascinating

What makes Hegel so fascinating? I am tempted to say that I became obsessed with
Hegel because it takes so much time and effort to understand him. But I will not say
that. It would seem that the complexity of his work and sometimes even the obscurity
can be fascinating on a personal level, but that in itself is not very inviting. To me
personally however it is quite true. The art of interpreting a philosophical text
reaches, in the case of Hegel's writings, its highest level.

All of the labor that you need to put in to understanding Hegel has a solid revenue.
Understanding Hegel always means an improved understanding of the world, our
culture and oneself. One might disagree with him in every respect, but you get the
feeling that nothing is overlooked. It's dazzling. Everything is there. There is hardly
any original thought that we have, that Hegel did not anticipate.

Some people, especially in the Dutch tradition of neo-Hegelianism, didn't even try to
be original. Philosophy to them meant rewriting and editing Hegel, applying the
system to new problems. "Understanding Hegel means understanding that he cannot
be surpassed," said German philosopher Richard Kroner. That goes even beyond the
famous dictum that the entire history of philosophy consists of nothing but footnotes
to Plato.
It doesn't mean that Hegel is the only philosopher I read. I have read Plato, Aristotle,
Thomas and Kant extensively, and I try to keep up with contemporary philosophy as
well. I always had a special interest in the Jewish philosophy of Martin Buber,
Immanuel Lévinas and Emil Fackenheim. I like reading Heidegger, Derrida, Badiou,
Agamben and Zizek. And lately I had a renewed interest in English philosophy:
Locke, Hume but also Rawls and others. I am indebted to all of them. But none of
them had pages that were so delightful, so cramped with brilliance as did Hegel's.

Understanding the world better

All of this however remains superficial. If philosophy is about understanding the
world, then the only good reason for reading Hegel must be that he makes us
understand the world better than anybody else. Now does he do that? I think there are
at least three basic principles in Hegel's philosophy that we need in our contemporary
efforts.

First of all, though mostly misunderstood, we need to understand Hegel's thesis about
the identity of the concept and its reality. It is badly misunderstood if we just take that
as a statement of principle by itself. That is, if we mean by that, that the subjective
idea that we have is identical to the material reality out there. Hegel never meant that.
Understanding what he did mean turns out to be a very prosperous enterprise. At least
you can say that our modes of thinking and the reality that we live in are not fully
divergent. You can approach that from many perspectives: as a specimen of nature we
find within ourselves a growing understanding of the world, that is in some way a
product of the world itself. Nature comes to self understanding within us. But there
are many other ways to approach this.

Second, and to me quite important, is Hegel's analysis of European culture, society,

religion, and history. Especially because the concept in Hegel is not just a
justification of things as they are. The concept for instance of property is not simply
an expression of the status quo, but it is also a basis for criticism. Criticism of the
way we think, act and live within our contemporary social institutions. Criticism of
current ideologies, criticism of the illusions of our modern political culture. This
critical aspect of Hegel social philosophy and ethics is not immediately apparent, but
it is required by the very nature of the concept. And by the way, this explains why
Hegel could say that whenever the concept differed from reality, it was too bad for
reality. That was not an expression of subjective idealism, but a strong affirmation of
the normative value inherent in the pure concept.

My third point is the most personal. Of course philosophy is and should be a science.
As such its aims and contents go beyond the purely personal. Nevertheless
philosophy remains a search for wisdom, and it attracts many people beyond the pale
of academic pursuits precisely because it expresses the universal human quest for
truth, goodness and beauty. Of course Hegel warns against any philosophy that tries
to be reassuring or comforting or entertaining. Not because those aims are unworthy,
but because comfort can only be found in the truth, and truth can only be found in the
hard labor of the concept. I found that understanding Hegel also meant understanding
my own life. Of course not in its psychological and social particulars, but in its
universality as a social being, as a product of European culture, as a spiritual being.

In sum, Hegel is worth the effort. And there is a simple dialectical argument to prove
that, even if you're not convinced by my three previous arguments. They say that
Hegel is the most important philosopher that ever lived. He is certainly the most
difficult to refute. So there you have it: precisely by arguing with and against Hegel,
you can develop your own position to its highest possible level. Hegel is the best
sparring partner you can imagine. He is the most critical interrogator you can ever
hope to find. If you know why you need to differ from Hegel, chances are that you
have stumbled upon a meaningful truth for the present.

How to study Hegel?

How best to study Hegel? Just reading him would be a nice start. You could rewrite
paragraphs in your own style, you could try to write down the flow of his arguments,
you could make small lists of the various meanings of Hegel's terminology. Your
notebook would soon be filled with a lot of question marks.

I remember sitting down with a friend when I just started reading philosophy at the
University of Amsterdam. We tried to read the preface on the phenomenology
together. We couldn't understand what Hegel meant after the fifth or sixth paragraph
of that preface.
So we skipped that part, and tried the introduction. We couldn't understand the first
paragraph.
Then we decided to go straight for the first chapter on consciousness. And then of
course we found that we didn't agree with anything Hegel said. At least we thought
that now we had some understanding of what he was trying to say.
But the chapter was so complex, then we looked at the table of contents to find
something a little easier to read.
Then we discovered that Hegel had written a chapter on phrenology. We began to
laugh at the silliness of this 19th century philosopher man believed in the science of
measuring skulls to reach a psychological understanding of human nature.
Needless to say that after just two sessions we dropped Hegel.

Fortunately we had a wonderful teacher in our second year whose classes were
compulsory who showed us where we went wrong. When he explained the preface
and introduction and the section on consciousness, it was as if Hegel himself was
among us. To this day I have found no better way to understand Hegel, but also Plato,
Aristotle, Thomas or Kant for that matter. Classical texts of such complexity required
the knowledge of a body of literature, a context in which we can understand what is
going on. Hegel needs a voice, a personal guide. I had the good fortune to be taught
Hegel by two of the most clever minds I've ever encountered: Jan Hollak and Kees-
Jan Brons. For me it is a privilege (and a pleasurable novelty to do so on the web) to
teach Hegel in this manner. WIZiQ gives me the opportunity to reach out to people in
the world that have gained some access to Hegel, but now need a living dialogue to
advance their understanding.

The World Wide Web may be one of the objective realizations of what Hegel called
the world spirit. 19th century thought and 21st-century technology come together. We
live in a fascinating age.