Hegels Phenomenology of Spirit :: Philosophy Hegel Elephant Papers

Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit One of the most difficult philosophical works ever written is Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit. In the "Introduction" to this work, Hegel attempts to aid his readers by describing the project that he carries out. But like so many things written by Hegel, the "Introduction" itself is formidable and very difficult to understand. In this paper, I attempt to "make sense" of the "Introduction" and, thus, contribute to the understanding of the Phenomenology. To achieve this end, I take the great liberty of comparing philosophers with blind men and Reality with an elephant. I take a series of claims made by Hegel in the "Introduction" and show how they make sense of his project once they are seen in the context of John Godfred Saxe’s poem, "The Blind Men and the Elephant." In doing so, I explain the similarity of problems presented in the poem and the Phenomenology. Further, I show how the nature of both problems places the same kind of restrictions on anyone trying to overcome either. While Saxe’s poem urges an acceptance of the fact that total truth is always beyond your grasp, Hegel’s goal is to achieve such a truth. What you will see is that all the characteristics that would have stopped most philosophers and Saxe, become the means by which Hegel thinks he can ultimately achieve knowledge of the Elephant. One of the most difficult of the "Great Philosophical Works" is Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit. As you read the book, you are caught in a maze of conflicting claims and you quickly become unsure of your footing. Is this Hegel’s own position or is it a characterization of the very positions that he is attacking? In fact, it is not long before you begin to wonder: Where is Hegel in all this? If you turn to the "Introduction" of the Phenomenology, you find that, even when Hegel attempts to be helpful, his explanations do not really throw much light. "Now, because it has only phenomenal knowledge for its object, this exposition seems not to be Science, free and self-moving in its own peculiar shape; yet from this standpoint it can be regarded as the path of the natural consciousness which presses forward to true knowledge; or as the way of the Soul which journeys through the series of its own configurations as though they were the stations appointed for it by its own nature, so that it may purify itself for the life of the Spirit, and achieve finally, through a completed experience of itself, the awareness of what is really is in itself.