Publisher Description

Part two contains the text - in German and English - of the first two chapters of Hegel's "Logic". Part three then provides a clear and accessible commentary on these two chapters that both examines Hegel's arguments in detail and relates his insights to those of other philosophers.

Author Biography

Stephen Houlgate is a professor of philosophy at the University of Warwick. His books include The Opening of Hegel's Logic: From Being to Infinity (Purdue, 2006), and An Introduction to Hegel: Freedom, Truth and History (Blackwell, 2005).

Table of Contents

Preface Acknowledgements List of Abbreviations Note on Hegel?s Science of Logic Introduction Part One: The Project of the Science of Logic Chapter One: The Categories of Thought Chapter Two: Presuppositionless Thinking Chapter Three: The Presuppositions of Presuppositionless Thinking Chapter Four: Language, Reflection, and the Beginning of the Logic Chapter Five: Immanent and Quasi-Transcendental Thought Chapter Six: Logic and Ontology Chapter Seven: Phenomenology and Logic Chapter Eight: Preparing to Read Hegel?s Logic Part Two: Text Chapter Nine: Beginning Logic: Text Chapter Ten: Being: Text Chapter Eleven: Determinate Being: Text Chapter Twelve: Something and Other, Finitude: Text Chapter Thirteen: Infinity: Text Part Three: Commentary and Discussion Chapter Fourteen: Being, Nothing, and Becoming Chapter Fifteen: From Becoming to Determinate Being Chapter Sixteen: Determinate Being Chapter Seventeen: Something and Other Chapter Eighteen: Being-in-Itself and Being-for-Other Chapter Nineteen: Determination, Constitution, and Limit Chapter Twenty: Finitude: Limitation and the Ought Chapter Twenty-one: Through Finitude to Infinity Chapter Twenty-two: True Infinity Conclusion Bibliography Index

Long Description

Hegel is one of the most important modern philosophers, whose thought influenced the development of existentialism, Marxism, pragmatism, hermeneutics, and deconstruction. Yet Hegel's central text, the monumental Science of Logic, still remains for most philosophers (both figuratively and literally) a firmly closed book. The purpose of The Opening of Hegel's Logic is to dispel the myths that surround the Logic and to show that Hegel's unjustly neglected text is a work of extraordinary subtlety and insight. Part One argues that the Logic provides a rigorous derivation of the fundamental categories of thought and contrasts Hegel's approach to the categories with that of Kant. It goes on to examine the historical and linguistic presuppositions of Hegel's self-critical, ""presuppositionless"" logic and, in the process, considers several signifi- cant criticisms of such logic advanced by Schelling, Feuerbach, Gadamer, and Kierkegaard. Separate chapters are devoted to the relation between logic and ontology in Hegel's Logic and to the relation between the Logic itself and the Phenomenology. Part Two contains the text-in German and English-of the first two chapters of Hegel's Logic, which cover such categories as being, becoming, something, limit, finitude, and infinity. Part Three then provides a clear and accessible commentary on these two chapters that both examines Hegel's arguments in detail and relates his insights to those of other philosophers, such as Descartes, Spinoza, Kant, Nietzsche, and Levinas. The Opening of Hegel's Logic aims to help students and scholars read Hegel's often formidably difficult text for themselves and discover the wealth of philosophical riches that itcontains. It also argues that Hegel's project of a presuppositionless science of logic is one that deserves serious consideration today.

Details