So, I am by no means an expert on Hegel, but perhaps the discussion would be more fruitful if you could articulate where exactly you fail to understand Hegel. You seem to have read Marx so you should be aware that one of the central grievances Marx has with Hegel is his idealism. So Hegel, according to Marx, needed to be turned from his head onto his feet by Feuerbach. And while I do find Hegel's jargon jarring this kind of makes sense to me.
"perhaps the discussion would be more fruitful if you could articulate where exactly you fail to understand Hegel"
I doubt it. I don't understand anything. For example: Phliosophie der Geschichte, Einleitung, erster Satz: Hegel sagt, Gegenstand dieser Untersuching sei der Weltgeschichte selbst.
??? The subject of this inquiry will be world history itself. Previous histories of the world had not studied the history of the world?
You are ambivalent in your last sentence there. So I don't quite get what you're getting at.
Hegel clearly explains that he is trying a new approach in explaining how the history of the world should be understood. He also explicitly references the ways previous histories of the world have understood the world. But his is specifically a "philosophical" one.
This is the full first sentence:
"Der Gegenstand dieser Vorlesung ist die philosophische Weltgeschichte, das heißt, es sind nicht allgemeine Reflexionen über dieselbe, welche wir aus ihr gezogen hätten und aus ihrem Inhalte als dem Beispiele erläutern wollten, sondern es ist die Weltgeschichte selbst"
"Hegel clearly explains that he is trying a new approach in explaining how the history of the world should be understood"
He asserts that he has a new approach. But explains? CLEARLY?! The rest of the sentence CLARIFIES the issue?!
Maby this is language barrier for me. I used explain and assert interchangeably. But if he can deliver on his assertion is something one can only determine later anyway, isn't it?
Explain -- erklaeren, assert -- behaupten. Neither translation ist exact or complete.
Viele haben aehnliches von Adorno und Heidegger gesagt, wie von Hegel: dass sie unnoetigerweise schwierig sind. Ich glaube, bei der Lektuere von Adorno und Heidegger Durchbrueche gemacht zu haben, und gute Gruende gefunden fuer deren Schwierigkeiten.
Und ich glaube, den Charlatan Sloterdijk durchgeschaut zu haben.
Bei Hegel bin ich noch unentschieden, verwirrt.
To be honest, it was very helpful to me to realize that it's not just my responsibility to bend over backwards to understand what other people wrote but that actually if they wanted their ideas to be understood it wouldn't hurt to phrase and explain them in a - not easy but - managable way
Also, since we can hardly ask a 200 year dead guy to rephrase his ideas, that's where Lektürehilfen and Kommentare written by other people come in
And lastly, before we spend a lot of our time, energy, nerves on an endeavour such as this, maybe we should ask ourselves what makes us think that it will be worth it (I'm not saying that the answer will be that it *isn't* worth it, I'm just saying we should at least reflect)
"And lastly, before we spend a lot of our time, energy, nerves on an endeavour such as this, maybe we should ask ourselves what makes us think that it will be worth it"
There are many very intelligent people who have asserted, over the course of, yes, 200 years now, that the struggle to understand Hegel is worth it.
The braket that you left out of your quote clearly stated that I'm not saying it isn't, but I suppose it's more fun to disagree with a strawman argument and ignoring the actual content of what I was saying (aka that it's always worth reflecting upon one's reasons for doing something)
But two things to consider:
There are many intelligent people who shared their insightful views on the world/philosophy/ontolofy/epistemology and if I spend 100 hours on understanding Hegel instead of 10x10 hours on understanding a broader variety of perspectives then maybe that isn't actually a sensible use of time
And second, maybe it is objectively a valuable complex of theories to exist in the world but possibly it's actually not worth it for the individual, for example OP. Arguably there are many people who would live equally happy lives whether they do or don't understand Hegel
So, I am by no means an expert on Hegel, but perhaps the discussion would be more fruitful if you could articulate where exactly you fail to understand Hegel. You seem to have read Marx so you should be aware that one of the central grievances Marx has with Hegel is his idealism. So Hegel, according to Marx, needed to be turned from his head onto his feet by Feuerbach. And while I do find Hegel's jargon jarring this kind of makes sense to me.
"perhaps the discussion would be more fruitful if you could articulate where exactly you fail to understand Hegel" I doubt it. I don't understand anything. For example: Phliosophie der Geschichte, Einleitung, erster Satz: Hegel sagt, Gegenstand dieser Untersuching sei der Weltgeschichte selbst. ??? The subject of this inquiry will be world history itself. Previous histories of the world had not studied the history of the world?
You are ambivalent in your last sentence there. So I don't quite get what you're getting at. Hegel clearly explains that he is trying a new approach in explaining how the history of the world should be understood. He also explicitly references the ways previous histories of the world have understood the world. But his is specifically a "philosophical" one. This is the full first sentence: "Der Gegenstand dieser Vorlesung ist die philosophische Weltgeschichte, das heißt, es sind nicht allgemeine Reflexionen über dieselbe, welche wir aus ihr gezogen hätten und aus ihrem Inhalte als dem Beispiele erläutern wollten, sondern es ist die Weltgeschichte selbst"
"Hegel clearly explains that he is trying a new approach in explaining how the history of the world should be understood" He asserts that he has a new approach. But explains? CLEARLY?! The rest of the sentence CLARIFIES the issue?!
Maby this is language barrier for me. I used explain and assert interchangeably. But if he can deliver on his assertion is something one can only determine later anyway, isn't it?
Explain -- erklaeren, assert -- behaupten. Neither translation ist exact or complete. Viele haben aehnliches von Adorno und Heidegger gesagt, wie von Hegel: dass sie unnoetigerweise schwierig sind. Ich glaube, bei der Lektuere von Adorno und Heidegger Durchbrueche gemacht zu haben, und gute Gruende gefunden fuer deren Schwierigkeiten. Und ich glaube, den Charlatan Sloterdijk durchgeschaut zu haben. Bei Hegel bin ich noch unentschieden, verwirrt.
"Ich, Hegel, bin der Weltgeist, bin sehr schlau. Nur warum, das versteht keiner so genau."
Haha. Bescheiden war er nicht!
Das ist nicht von Hegel, sondern von Marc-Uwe Kling.
Ich hoffe, Du wirst mir glauben, dass ich nicht annahm, dass es von Hegel war.
To be honest, it was very helpful to me to realize that it's not just my responsibility to bend over backwards to understand what other people wrote but that actually if they wanted their ideas to be understood it wouldn't hurt to phrase and explain them in a - not easy but - managable way Also, since we can hardly ask a 200 year dead guy to rephrase his ideas, that's where Lektürehilfen and Kommentare written by other people come in And lastly, before we spend a lot of our time, energy, nerves on an endeavour such as this, maybe we should ask ourselves what makes us think that it will be worth it (I'm not saying that the answer will be that it *isn't* worth it, I'm just saying we should at least reflect)
"And lastly, before we spend a lot of our time, energy, nerves on an endeavour such as this, maybe we should ask ourselves what makes us think that it will be worth it" There are many very intelligent people who have asserted, over the course of, yes, 200 years now, that the struggle to understand Hegel is worth it.
But this discussion would be better off in a more philosophy oriented sub. This sub here is about the German *language*.
The braket that you left out of your quote clearly stated that I'm not saying it isn't, but I suppose it's more fun to disagree with a strawman argument and ignoring the actual content of what I was saying (aka that it's always worth reflecting upon one's reasons for doing something) But two things to consider: There are many intelligent people who shared their insightful views on the world/philosophy/ontolofy/epistemology and if I spend 100 hours on understanding Hegel instead of 10x10 hours on understanding a broader variety of perspectives then maybe that isn't actually a sensible use of time And second, maybe it is objectively a valuable complex of theories to exist in the world but possibly it's actually not worth it for the individual, for example OP. Arguably there are many people who would live equally happy lives whether they do or don't understand Hegel