Preface and Acknowledgements

Summary

This is another attempt to expound Hegel. I suppose that it would be superfluous and very possibly self-defeating to try to justify it at the outset. But it is worth looking at the difficulties which beset all such attempts.

The enterprise can easily go awry in one of two opposite ways. Either one can end up being terribly clear and sounding very reasonable at the cost of distorting, even bowdlerizing Hegel. Or one can remain faithful but impenetrable, so that in the end readers will turn with relief to the text in order to understand the commentary.

The reader will have to judge whether I have succeeded in avoiding either or both of these pitfalls. But I should like to explain now how I have tried. Part I of this book is an attempt to expound the central lines of Hegel's conception without confining myself to his own terms. I recognize that this is a hazardous undertaking. But I hope to remain faithful to Hegel's intentions by placing this outline of his philosophy in relation to the main aspirations of his generation, which his philosophical vision was intended to meet in its own unique way.

Chapter 1 is thus devoted to an attempt to describe the aspirations of the generation of young Romantics of the 1790s, from which Hegel sprang and against whom he defined himself. After a brief chapter on Hegel's development, I then try in chapter in to present an outline of his central ideas.