[61] The Phenomenology of Spirit By Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

An introduction and summary of "The Phenomenology of Spirit” By Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel 1807

The Phenomenology of Spirit is the most widely discussed philosophical work of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel; its German title can be translated as either The Phenomenology of Spirit or The Phenomenology of Mind. Hegel described the work, published in 1807, as an "exposition of the coming to be of knowledge”. This is explicated through a necessary self-origination and dissolution of "the various shapes of spirit as stations on the way through which spirit becomes pure knowledge".The book marked a significant development in German idealism after Immanuel Kant. Focusing on topics in metaphysics, epistemology, ontology, ethics, history, religion, perception, consciousness, existence, logic and political philosophy, it is where Hegel develops his concepts of dialectic (including the lord-bondsman dialectic), absolute idealism, ethical life and Aufhebung. It had a profound effect in Western philosophy, and "has been praised and blamed for the development of existentialism, communism, fascism, death of God theology and historicist nihilism"