Ok guys I have read one page of Hegel and I already want to rip my eyes out of their sockets. How can I read Hegel in a way that is easier? Is there a method I can apply while reading? I refuse to die without understanding this fucker.
Ok guys I have read one page of Hegel and I already want to rip my eyes out of their sockets. How can I read Hegel in a way that is easier? Is there a method I can apply while reading? I refuse to die without understanding this fucker.
A friend of mine used to quote his old philosophy professor: “Kant is difficult because he’s trying to be clear. Hegel has no such inhibitions.”
Hegel be like “this is the most incoherent 800 pages of literature, drop it”
Exactly, lol. On a more serious note, I was advised to start reading Hegel as if it’s poetry or a piece of mystical literature – i.e., in meditative mood, looking for esoteric or symbolic meaning, almost like a medieval monk reading the Scriptures. Hegel was a German Romantic, and his work is designed to be penetrated that way. After a while “encountering” the text like this, it should start to make more sense, and then you begin to read it as you normally would philosophy.
The guy was brilliant, no doubt about it. But he wrote in the most obnoxious manner.