Thread by @RightHegelian

ULTIMATE HEGELIAN READING LIST 🧵

The unbroken development of Western philosophy from Parmenides to Hegel in 63 essential books – with commentary.

1. Parmenides - On Nature

Philosophy begins with Parmenides. He raises the question of thinking and being, and formulates the principle of identity: "this shall never be proved, that the things that are not are.”

2. Zeno - Paradoxes

On account of his paradoxes, Parmenides’s student, Zeno is known as the father of dialectic. His writings have not come down to us. But Hegel gives a helpful overview of the paradoxes in his Lectures on the History of Philosophy.

3. Heraclitus - Fragments

Hegel said that “there is no proposition of Heraclitus which I have not adopted in my Logic.” The thought of flux or becoming is most associated with Heraclitus, but the fragments on Logos are just as essential.

4. Plato - Republic

Plato's masterpiece. Book VI is especially notable, because it contains the allegories of the sun, divided line, and cave. The remark at 509b, that “the good is beyond essence [ousia],” is also to be noted.

5. Plato - Theaetetus and Sophist

Sophist is an ontological inquiry like Plato's Parmenides and Aristotle’s Categories. It serves as a propaedeutic to them both. It may be paired with the Theaetetus, an epistemological dialogue with similarities to Descartes’s Meditations.

6. Plato - Philebus

This dialogue contains an important discussion of the finite (peras) and the infinite (apeiros), which comes from Anaximander, the pre-Socratic.

7. Plato - Parmenides

Parmenides is Plato’s theology. The dialectic here is really a derivation of the categories. The One is the first god, or the Father. The discussion with Parmenides and Zeno is an instruction for us to think the ideas (forms) in and for themselves.

8. Plato - Timaeus

End Plato with the Timaeus, which discusses the other two gods, the Demiurge or Son, and the World Soul. The discussion of the formation of the world at 31b is notable. I recommend the Cooper translation for all of Plato’s works.

9. Aristotle - On the Soul

Hegel: this is "perhaps the only work of philosophical value on this topic.” Soul is the form of body. And it is activity: it only is when it thinks (cf. Fichte). Actuality is thus the true substance. Mind is passive or active. The latter is immortal.

10. Aristotle - Categories & On Interpretation

The Categories are the universal determinations of beings qua being. They are equally logical and metaphysical. They recur in the Metaphysics and the inquiry into them is revived by Kant. On Interpretation is the theory of judgment.

11. Aristotle - Prior Analytics

This is Aristotle’s theory of the syllogism. This is a formidable work, and at times tedious. But it is the first inquiry of its kind. No one before Aristotle attempted a doctrine of thinking in its concrete actuality.

12. Aristotle - Metaphysics

Read Zeta, Eta, Theta, Lambda. Substance is not matter, but essence (to ti en einai) or form. Actuality is thus prior to potency. But actuality is thinking. Substance is thus subject. Absolute substance is restful act, thought thinking itself, God.

13. The Torah

Behold that the serpent does not lie to Eve in Genesis 3. God confirms it at 3:22. In Exodus 3:7-14 God states the principle of identity à la Parmenides: “I am that I am.” Leviticus 19:18 states the golden rule or Kantian categorical imperative.

14. The Gospel of John

The Logos which was mere universal in Greek philosophy penetrates the womb of particularity, reemerging as an individual, Jesus. Truth and freedom are now a gift to all men (John 8:32). The absolute idea gives itself personality. Also read 1 Cor. 2.

15. Clement - Stromateis

Clement sets for ‘gnostic Christianity’. But for Clement, ‘gnosis’ is simply the Christian revelation. It does not have the negative, dualistic connotation we associate with it. Hegel’s library contained all of Clement’s works.

16. Origen - On First Principles

The first comprehensive Christian theology. It is a Platonic theology. Notable here is the idea of universal salvation or apokatastasis. This finds its way to Hegel through St. Maximus, Eriugena, Böhme, and Oetinger.

17. The Corpus Hermeticum

This is like the Bible of Platonism. The books are read by many Christian theologians, Neoplatonists, and Renaissance humanists. It comes to Hegel via Ficino, Agrippa, Bruno, Paracelsus, and Böhme. Identity of knowledge and freedom is present here.

18. Plotinus - The Enneads

This lacks the systematicity of Proclus. Yet it's notable for impact on later Christian theology. Especially the essay, ‘On the Three Principle Hypostases’. God is three: the One, Intellect, and Soul. Proclus rethinks these as negation of negation.

19. Proclus - Commentary on Plato’s Parmenides

Great intro to Platonism as a whole, and thus to Elements of Theology. He says dialectic is divine science and the only salvation! Read Introduction + books 5-7. Important here is the discussion of the varieties of negation.

20. Proclus - Elements of Theology

Proclus's masterpiece. All of metaphysics is here in the form of negation of negation. The spiritual method is procession (proodos) and reversion (epistrophe). Hegel says it’s the turning point from ancient to modern (Christian) times.

21. Dionysius the Areopagite - The Divine Names

This man introduces Proclus's negation theory to Christianity. It is essentially Proclus + Christian piety. Now begins the odyssey in which philosophy loses itself in theology, and does not return to itself until Descartes.

22. St. Maximus the Confessor - Ambigua

Maximus is like the Byzantine Böhme. Here we find the idea of apokatastasis paired with the Proclean negation of negation. Ambigua 17, 20, 41, and 42 are most important.

23. Eriugena - Periphyseon

Eriugena was instructed to continue Maximus’s work by Charles the Bald. The very beginning, where he discusses the division of nature, is interesting with respect to Hegel. He may be called the Medieval Hegel. There is an angelology here as well.

24. Anselm - Proslogion

To understand Hegel one must know he defends Anselm's argument for God's existence contra Kant’s criticism that being is not a predicate. For Hegel, Anselm’s argument means that the concept necessarily has being in it. Or thinking and being are one.

25. Aquinas - Commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics

We come now to the reception of Aristotle in the West from out of Islam. There is no thought to derive the categories. But Aquinas gives some hints in this direction in Book 5 Lesson 9. Also, book 7 is good.

26. Aquinas - Summa Theologiae

Summit of dogmatism, i.e. external relation of theology and philosophy. Read about essence and existence in ‘the One God’. Exitus-reditus is procession-reversion, negation of negation. But the form of question and answer is not genuine dialectic.

27. Scotus - Philosophical Writings

The essay ‘Concerning Metaphysics’ is important. Finite, infinite, and being are called the principal categories. There is the thought of deducing the categories. But for the actual deduction we must wait for Fichte and finally Hegel's Logic.

28. Ockham - Philosophical Writings

Ockham is notable for his nominalism, the theory that universals are names. This is connected to relativism. The essay ‘Being and Essence’ explains some dense terminology which is necessary for understanding the deduction in Hegel’s Logic.

29. Eckhart - Selected Writings

Eckhart knew Eriugena. He says “The eye through which I see God is the same eye through which God sees me.” The Church made him a heretic. He inspired Luther via Tauler. Sermon 17 in this volume contains a discussion of the negation of negation.

30. Ficino - Platonic Theology

Ficino translated the Corpus Hermeticum into Latin. His philosophy is a revival of Platonism, but it is nostalgic. His major work is a Platonic Theology à la Proclus. But it is long and disorganized. His success is that he inspired Bruno.

31. Luther - The Freedom of a Christian

Here we find the great insight that the criterion of truth is in the subject. The origin of liberalism, and of Kant’s critical philosophy too, is to be found here. But the subject must not be thought as relative. That is terror, anarchy.

32. Bruno - Cause, Principle, and Unity

The Church martyred Bruno due to his heliocentrism. His writings exhibit an advanced dialectic, deeply inspired by Cusanus, who also knew Eriugena. Bruno’s dialectic is among Hegel's great inspirations. Schelling wrote a book on him.

33. Böhme - Aurora

Hegel calls Böhme 'the first German philosopher’. Aurora is a Christian theosophy with terms from Paracelsus, a great healer. Aurora influenced Oetinger’s apokatastasis. The chapter on Böhme in Hegel's History of Philosophy elucidates this obscure work.

34. Descartes - Meditations

Philosophy returns to its native soil with Descartes’s Meditations for the first time since Proclus. Thinking and being are substances, res cogitans and res extensa. They are connected through God but this unity is not developed by Descartes.

35. Spinoza - Principles of Cartesian Philosophy

Spinoza’s elucidation of Descartes, and the beginning of his own system. What is most interesting here is the appendix, the Cogitata Metaphysica, where Spinoza writes, “we begin, therefore, with being.”

36. Spinoza - Ethics

Spinoza’s masterwork. Thinking and being are attributes of one substance, ‘God or nature’. The defect is that substance is unspiritual, unfree. Yet the German Idealists are so influenced by Spinoza that their system may be called ‘Spinozism of freedom’.

37. Leibniz - Monadology

If Spinoza makes the universal the principle, and Locke makes it empirical multiplicity, then Leibniz unites the two in the individual, the monad. His ‘monadology’ is influential. But ‘pre-established harmony’ does not solve Spinoza's freedom problem.

38. Wolff - Rational Thoughts on God

Wolff lays down the Leibnizian philosophy in the German tongue. Thus it is called the Leibniz-Wolff system. Hegel read Wolff's ‘Logic’ as a student. But the more important text is ‘Rational Thoughts on God’. Chapters 1-3 + 6 are notable.

39. Baumgarten - Metaphysics

Kant taught from this textbook for much of his career. It is the Leibniz-Wolff system, but more organized. Roughly, the content of Hegel’s system is here, but in dogmatic, undialectical form. Kant negates Baumgarten, Hegel negates the negation.

40. Crucius and Lambert

From this volume read the essay by Crucius, ‘Sketch of the Necessary Truths of Reason’. And by Lambert, ‘Treatise on the Criterion of Truth’. These texts shed light on Kant’s Critique of Reason. Lambert was sponsored by Frederick the Great.

41. Lessing - Philosophical and Theological Writings

Lessing is a major figure of the German Enlightenment. The most important text in this volume is ‘The Christianity of Reason’. This is German Idealism in a nutshell or in concept. The conversation with Jacobi is influential.

42. Kant - Jäsche Logic

These are Kant’s best lectures on logic. No advance has been made since Aristotle. But in Kant’s hands the material is more organized than in Prior Analytics. The negation of negation is also made more explicit by Kant.

43. Kant - Critique of Pure Reason

Synthesis a priori = thought is concrete in itself. Dialectic finally known as necessary. Categories are the forms of Judgment à la Aristotle. Read: Clue for the Discovery, Intro to Division Two, Concepts of Pure Reason, Ideal of Pure Reason.

44. Kant - Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics

Excellent summary of the prev. In dialectic, thought touches the void beyond the bound of reason. Dialectic = divine science. But problem: Kant has the ghostly thing-in-itself hanging around. Hegel shows the paradox = God.

45. Kant - Critique of Practical Reason

Theory of will on scientific basis. Reason is here independent. It has the moral law (Lev. 19:18), which is freedom (John 8:32). But in Kant it is abstract. Because for Kant God is postulate only. Cf. Hegel, Philosophy of Right, §135.

46. Kant - Critique of Judgment

Reason was restricted. But there remains a demand to overstep the bound. The Idea must be concrete. Because teleology in nature requires unity of reason and experience. Yet Kant retains the dualism. Read § 64-71, 77-78, and 82-86.

47. Fichte - Science of Knowledge

Hegel says “from Aristotle to Fichte, no one thought to derive the categories.” It is the I = I or conscious identity principle, which is the key to the activity of the deduction. Cf. Exodus 3:14. With Fichte the thing-in-itself hangs around.

48. Schelling - On the ‘I’ as the Principle of Philosophy

Schelling’s early Fichtean system. This is good for beginners. Dialectic breaks out of the subjective status and the thing-in-itself is known as the ‘I’. But the ‘I’ is ambiguous: finite or infinite (divine) ego.

49. Hölderlin - Judgment and Being

Brief fragment was written the same year as the Schelling essay (1795), and contains an important thought on the etymology of the German ‘Urteil’, which Hegel puts to use in his Doctrine of the Concept.

50. Schelling - System of Transcendental Idealism

Dialectic approaching Hegel’s Logic. Three epochs match roughly the three books of Hegel’s Logic. Thing-in-itself overcome? Two problems: the Absolute is defined as an ‘indifference’, and the dialectic ends in aesthetics.

51. Hegel - Differenzschrift

Early text on Hegel's criticism of Fichte and Schelling, and thus offers clues into the development of Hegel's Absolute System. The whole content of science must be lifted up into the I = I or identity principle of consciousness. Including nature.

52. Hegel - Jena System

This early version of the Logic shows Hegel struggling to structure his system. It is useful as a point of reference for the Logic's development. Much of the final work is here already, but the whole is not quite in the form of negation of negation.

53. Hegel - Lectures on the History of Philosophy

In preparation for the end, please read some chapters from these lectures. The most important are: Zeno, Plato, Aristotle (especially!), Proclus, Bruno, Böhme, Spinoza, Kant, Fichte, Schelling, and Final Result.

54. Hegel - Encyclopedia Logic

The introduction of this text is especially recommended for beginners. In Being, the relation between categories is immediate. In Essence, they are showing themselves in an other. In Concept, they are self-comprehending.

55. Hegel - Encyclopedia Philosophy of Nature

Introduction is good for beginners. Divisions of nature (Mechanics, Physics, and Organics) reflect those of Logic (Being, Essence, and Concept). Plants and animals have the form I = I, principle of identity, self-comprehension.

56. Hegel - Encyclopedia Philosophy of Spirit

Likewise here Being is Subjective Spirit, Essence is Objective Spirit, and the Concept is Absolute Spirit or infinitely free and self-determining Spirit. The content is similar to the Phenomenology, but this is more organized.

57. Hegel - Phenomenology of Spirit

This work was wrongly taken in the 20th century, in France, to be Hegel’s whole system. In fact it is a propaedeutic. Taken as a whole unto itself, the result is a terrible relativism and abstract liberalism. The introduction is infamous.

58. Hegel - Philosophy of Right

This book is a masterpiece. Abstract Right corresponds to the problem of property, or communism (Marx). Morality likewise corresponds to fascism (Nietzsche). Ethical Life is the synthesis of the two, or genuine Hegelian liberalism.

59. Hegel - Lectures on Logic

Translator made some odd decisions but the lecture is good. Clarifies some obscurities in the Greater Logic. The last 20 pages or so are especially good. p. 228 is interesting vis-à-vis Orthodox Trinity (cf. Romanides ‘Franks, Romans…’).

60. Hegel - Lectures on the Philosophy of World History

Famous series of lectures Hegel gave at University of Berlin. Especially relevant is the section on the Reformation. One should look here for Hegel’s essential criticisms of Catholicism and abstract (negative) liberalism.

61. Hegel - Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion

Christianity is the Absolute Religion. In the introduction and first part (on the Concept of Religion) are found some of Hegel’s clearest and most direct statements about God, the Absolute Idea in relation to Absolute Spirit.

62. Hegel - Lectures on the Proofs of the Existence of God

The three proofs of God’s existence (ontological, cosmological, and teleological) correspond to the three spheres of Logic, Nature, and Spirit respectively, and to the three persons of the Christian Trinity.

63. Hegel - The Science of Logic

Hegel’s masterpiece. No one since Hegel has reached this high degree of penetration into the truth. Marx and Nietzsche are the sundered sides of this infinite self-comprehending unity. The World Spirit labors in darkness.

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