eager_readerr

I am beginning to think Hegel, like Nietzsche is just another phantom donkey for some philosophers to pin the Nazi tail on. Not only did Walter Kaufmann write the book From Shakespeare to Existentialism: Studies in Poetry, Religion, and Philosophy of which has its seventh chapter as a defense of Hegel (that big article that I copied and pasted above), but he also wrote an ENTIRE book dedicated to helping better understand Hegel. This is a clip from an old article that has been put on the internet, but only subscribers can see the whole thing. Here is all that Johnny Q. Public can see, for what it's worth: https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1965/07/15/restoring-hegel/ Here is what the original 1965 edition looks like in hardcover. https://www.amazon.com/Hegel-Reinterpretation-Commentary-Walter-Kaufmann/dp/B000GWV45W A different edition, also from the late 1960's. Also running 498 pages. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Hegel-Reinterpretation-Walter-Arnold-Kaufmann/dp/B0000CN4TM This large book seems to have been broken up into smaller volumes in later years. There is a 1st printing from 1977 called Hegel: Text and Commentary running at 144 pages, and there is also Hegel: A Reinterpretation published in 1988 running 432 pages. In summary, if one wants to get an accurate view of what Hegel really said and meant, avoid Popper and read the following: Hegel: Reinterpretation, Texts and Commentary by Walter Kaufmann. From Shakespeare to Existentialism: Studies in Poetry, Religion, and Philosophy by Walter Kaufmann. Specifically, chapter 7. Some unnamed book that Wilhelm Dilthey wrote in 1905 or 1906 about Hegel based on previously unpublished and unknown papers of Hegel. Hegel und der Staat by Franz Rosenzweig. "Hegel and Prussianism” in Philosophy, January, 1940 by T. M. Knox "Hegel and Prussianism" in Philosophy, April, 1940 by E.F. Carritt "Hegel and Prussianism" in Philosophy, July, 1940 by E.F. Carritt and T. M. Knox Or if one can not obtain those 3 articles from the Philosophy magazine, they can get a 1970 Walter Kaufmann paperback which reproduces them called Hegel's Political Philosophy. That book is on Amazon here. Or one can purchase a newer edition with a different title called Debating the Political Philosophy of Hegel. An article by Jon Stewart called "The Hegel Myths and Legends" (1996), from http://hegel.net recommends many books that rehabilitate Hegel. One of them being Hegel's Theory of the Modern State by Shlomo Avierni. The article also mention authors Errol E. Harris and Steven Walt who have helped rehabilitate Hegel. There is even a full length paperback anthology edited by Jon Stewart with the same name. I would also argue that Frederick Copleston has a very accurate and fair treatment of Hegel in A History of Philosophy #7. The hegel.net FAQ is a great summary of the anti Hegel bent in philosophy.

The reason I mention all off this Popper-Hegel controversy is because Popper seems to be reading a lot into Hegel that is simply not there. Popper appears at least to me to be guilty of distorting Hegel. While Smith only intended to reference Popper to refute the dialectic view of the history of philosophy, these works by Popper also contain many distortions of Hegel's philosophy. Was Smith aware of this? I ask because it would be incredibly ironic that Smith promoted Popper's distorted view on Hegel, when Smith was the one who wrote an essay called Will The Real Herbert Spencer Please Stand Up? which showed the many distortions and inaccuracies that plague secondary resources on Herbert Spencer. He says at the end of the essay that with few exceptions, secondary resources on Spencer should be avoided. Yet, here is Smith promoting the anti Hegel work of Popper that also suffers from huge inaccuracy and distortion. Bringing it back to Kaufmann. He wants us to believe that Hegel was not in the employ of the King of Prussia and did not write and teach philosophy in order to praise the monarch or gain favour with him. However, Schopenhauer accuses Hegel of doing precisely that. Example: Schopenhauer also said this about Fichte. Popper has this to offer on Fichte in his chapter on Hegel in Vol 2 of The Open Society and Its Enemies. Starting on page 51. Apparently Fichte was a German nationalist who also was willing to leave Germany and teach in Russia for a higher paycheque. I guess Fichte (and also Hegel and Schelling) doesn't live by philosophy or even for philosophy. Philosophy is just used for personal enrichment. At least that's how Schopenhauer sees it about Fichte and the other two. From what I can gather so far, Schopenhauer besides accusing Hegel of placating the ruling class in Prussia, thought much of his philosophy was babble and incomprehensible. But so did many others. In fact Hegel is reputed to have said that he was the only one who understood his philosophy. Features September 2000 The difficulty with Hegel by Roger Kimball Reflections on the philosopher, occasioned by the recent biography by Terry Pinkard. https://www.newcriterion.com/issues/2000/9/the-difficulty-with-hegel

Voegelin said this in a correspondence with Leo Strauss. The original webpage is gone now, but webarchive has a few snapshots of it. Here is one. Popper and many others have indeed accused Hegel's philosophy, or aspects of it, as being nefariously employed by certain people. The Hegel-Nazi connection is old hat as far as I can tell. Many claim Popper has at best misunderstood Hegel and at worst only relied on select quotations from him totally ripped from context instead of digesting entire works of Hegel's in order to properly understand Hegel's total system of philosophy. I was first made aware of Popper's critiques of Hegel in a footnote on page 105 of George H. Smith's book Why Atheism? Smith says that Hegel sees the history of philosophy - thought in general - as a development of a certain 'geist' or 'spirit.' The history of philosophy (thought) moves in a dialectic way. Smith then says that the history of philosophy did not actually follow such a logical progression. Smith then mentioned two works by Popper which critiqued "historicism" as Hegel's approach is often called. Smith recommended The Poverty of Historicism (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1961) and The Open Society and Its Enemies, vol. 2 (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1966). Smith also mentioned Ludwig Von Mises, Theory and History: An Interpretation of Social and Economic Evolution (New Rochelle, N.Y.: Arlington House, 1969). I have found some anti-Popper criticisms on the internet which take issue with Popper's critique of Hegel. While Smith only intended to send the reader to Popper to refute the Hegelian "historicism", there are in fact MANY problems in Popper that Smith's footnote does not touch on. One of the main critics of Popper was Walter Kaufmann. The latter accuses the former distorting Hegel nearly beyond recognition based on faulty secondary sources. Source: “From Shakespeare to Existentialism: Studies in Poetry, Religion, and Philosophy” by Walter Kaufmann, Beacon Press, Boston 1959, page 88-119, Chapter 7: The Hegel Myth and Its Method; http://hegel.net/en/kaufmann1959.htm Highlights: Defending white ashkenazi Jews doesn't make you a non-racist necessarily. Jewish race is a myth. What were Hegel's views on blacks? THAT would be a more accurate litmus test. That's my only critique of Kaufmann's work.

Well I was going through my old philosophy books and I found my 3 George H. Smith books. ATCAG, WA, and AARAOH. I remembered he was supposed to publish Happiness in a Godless World. So I did some googling and found this old topic. I also found the posts from eager reader with a tektonics.org critique. Low and behold, in the margin of a page in ATCAG, I made a pencil note about that same website. So I concluded that it was me years ago and I just forgot what I did. Hence, my similar username. Nobody responded years ago, and the last time anyone posted anything in the George H. Smith corner was last year. I sent a PM to George through this site. I hope he gets it.