Phenomenology of Spirit (Phänomenologie des Geistes)

Recommended translation: Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, tr. A. V. Miller. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977. First published in 1807.

Excerpt from the Preface: Besides, it is not difficult to see that ours is a birth-time and a period of transition to a new era. Spirit has broken with the world it has hitherto inhabited and imagined, and is of a mind to submerge it in the past, and in the labour of its own… More

The Science of Logic (Wissenschaft der Logik)

Hegel's Science of Logic, tr. A. V. Miller, (London: Allen & Unwin, 1969).

Excerpt: Introduction. General Notion of Logic In no science is the need to begin with the subject matter itself, without preliminary reflections, felt more strongly than in the science of logic. In every other science the subject matter and the scientific method are distinguished from… More

Elements of the Philosophy of Right (Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts)

Recommended translation: Elements of the Philosophy of Right, trans. H. B. Nisbet. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991. In addition, the translation by T. M. Knox (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1942) is widely used in existing Hegel scholarship. The Nisbet translation is recommended because it is more literal, and includes the canonical "additions" of Hegel's student Eduard Gans in the body of the text where they are relevant. First published in 1820.

Excerpt from the Preface: This treatise, therefore, in so far as it deals with political science, shall be nothing other than an attempt to comprehend and portray the state as an inherently rational entity. As a philosophical composition, it must distance itself as far as possible from… More

Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences Part 1: The Encyclopedia Logic (Wissenschaft der Logik)

Hegel, G.W.F. Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences, Part I: Logic. (Cambridge, 2010).

Excerpt: For, what this theory asserts is that truth lies neither in the Idea as a merely subjective thought, nor in mere being on its own account – that mere being per se, a being that is not of the Idea, is the sensible finite being of the world. Now all this only affirms, without… More

Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences Part 2: Philosophy of Nature (Wissenschaft der Natur)

Excerpt: […] If we do want to determine what the Philosophy of Nature is, our best method is to separate it off from the subject matter with which it is contrasted; for all determining requires two terms. In the first place, we find the Philosophy of Nature in a peculiar… More

Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences Part 3: Philosophy of Spirit (Wissenschaft des Geistes)

Excerpt: The knowledge of Mind is the highest and hardest, just because it is the most ‘concrete’ of sciences. The significance of that ‘absolute’ commandment, Know thyself – whether we look at it in itself or under the historical circumstances of its first… More

Early Theological Writings

Hegel, Early Theological Writings, tr. T.M. Knox, 1948.

Sect. 30 – The Rise of Sects Inevitable The various Christian churches share this policy of determining the motives, or the disposition, behind actions partly by the public statutes and ordinances, partly by the force necessary to give effect to these. By these means, human freedom… More

Lectures on the Philosophy of World History

Lectures on the Philosophy of World History, trans. H.B. Nisbet. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975.

From the publisher: An English translation of Hegel’s introduction to his lectures on the philosophy of history, based directly on the standard German edition by Johannes Hoffmeister, first published in 1955. The previous English translation, by J. Sibree, first appeared in 1857 and… More

Lectures on the History of Philosophy

Recommended edition: Lectures on the History of Philosophy, Humanity Books, 1989.

From the publisher: Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was not only a great philosopher but a great historian of philosophy. He invented the idea of the philosophical tradition as a discussion among philosophers extending over centuries centering on a few main philosophical problems. The… More