What should I read in order to understand the Phenomenology of Spirit?

What should I read in order to understand the Phenomenology of Spirit?
I've read Kant in pure and practical reason, but nothing of Hume. A part from those two, something else? (specific titles please).

Johann Gottlieb Fichte - Complete Works
Friedrich Schelling - Complete Works

Just read him

Don't read Phenomenology of Spirit before you read or study other works by Hegel, that's all. Of course it's also better if you know enough history of philosophy, but the main point is you should first know enough Hegel. The other user mentioning Fichte and Schelling is trolling.

Trolling? Are you fucking retarded or just a pleb?

Come on...
1. The complete works of an author are never necessary to read one essay by another author.
2. A good knowledge of Hegel's philosophy as it appears in his other, easier works is more useful than anything else.

It's like these guys saying you should read all Plato before starting Aristotle's Metaphysics... or even read all Hume before the Critic of pure reason... or even the whole Bible before Augustine. It make you sound like a scholar but it's both dishonest and not convenient.

How did you read Kant without Hume? As someone reading cpr right now that seems impossible

1. I said "complete works" just because I'm not Anglo and I don't know which of their books have been translated to English and which not... so I guess OP has to choose for himself
2. Yeah but probably OP is exactly one of those "guys saying you should read all Plato before starting Aristotle's Metaphysics", then I accomodated him.

German Idealism consists in a precise path through those three authors. I don't get why this board always relate Hegel to Kant or Hume; he's much more in dialogue with Fichte and Schelling, two top-tier philosophers with super interesting works. Just ignorance?

That's fair enough. Actually we never know if OP has attended lectures on Hume or Schelling or whoever, or read a guidebook to this or that. It may depend a lot from his country, since in some education systems you'll get a decent sight of history of philosophy (being probably enough to dive into Kant without having extensively read Hume, for instance), while in other systems you just have to rely on yourself (in which case obviously a guidebook or something is useful).

Wouldn't you say that for a general view and grasp of the essential points, the difference between Kant and Fichte can be ignored ? I mean, you need Kant if you study Fichte, but unless you're writing a book on Hegel you'll probably not need every single author he's dialoguing with. That would be Fichte and Schelling and also Descartes/Hume/Kant and then even a wider circle going back to the Greeks. If you just wanna read the Phenomenology, this adventure can be spared until you decide to read it for a second time.

Shouldn't we kill ourselves if philosophy worked like an infinite chain? I mean, it does, but you can't always ask "what should I read before ___" for every fucking book you pick up.

Also, is it better to read 30 philosophy books that cover the time frame from Plato to Nick Land, or to read 30 philosophy books from only the 18th and 19th century? I'm European and at school I received a good training in philosophy, I know the overall developmente of western thought from the beginning to the mid-19th century. Wouldn't then be more useful for me to choose a period - the one that interest me the most - and concentrate on it?

Don't read it. Read Philosophy of History instead. PoS/PoM is underdeveloped Hegel.

You don't need to read everything from Fichte and Schelling but you need at least a basic understanding of what was happening around Hegel. The Phenemology is very much a product of that time immediately after the Critique.

But in the end the PoS is still like little else in Philosophy. It's also HARD as hell, it's not a meme. I read it in german in a small class with a prof that's an expert on german idealism and we only got through the first half in an entire semester. Close reading /w commentary for each passage is 100% required or you won't understand anything.

Do this: Read Nietzsche scholar Walter Kaufman's short bio Hegel, which he wrote in a 'honeymoon spirit' because he was happy, in the process of getting married at the time, and touched by the subject: Hegel is not at all the man most think he is. Appended to this is his annotated translation of the justly famous preface, which Notre Dame Press, I believe, offers as a seperate(d) text if you don't have time for a (short) bio. Then read Alexandre Kojeve's equally short Introduction to the Reading of Hegel (Cornell) after which you can tackle the A.V. Miller translation of the P with confidence.

Isn't late Schelling a reaction to Hegel?

>Hegel is not at all the man most think he is.

How so?

Kind of a humble dreamer, stood by while his buddy Schelling took the lit world by storm in his early 20's (H published nada til his mid 30's)-- as Napoleon was literally marching into Jena Hegel was there furiously scribbling, trying to put the finishing touches on the P while waiting for his illegit child to be born, etc. It's crazy- check it out. H was a thoroughly decent fellow- faithful friend, very close to his sister, and yet! Worth checking out.

Sorry for the choppiness and redundancy of this. Was walking my dog.

...

Gee. Colour me surprised. Good luck, nonetheless.

He had a child with his maid, didn't he? Naughty bastard.

Ja, vehwee. Was at the time, son.. But continue. It's kindo' fun watching youse (zo miroslav klose!) yammer

Are you having a stroke?

You're so right.
Regarding the choice of "choosing a period" or not, honestly I couldn't tell, I never tried it, but it could definitely be more than interesting. Hell, reading Descartes and Hobbes at the same time for instance, including their letters to each other, that's appealing. I've always picked up a little bit here and there, spending two months on Plato then one week on Augustine then jumping onto to something else etc., so I couldn't tell.

Do not bother. No one has ever correctly understood what Hegel was rambling on about, himself not excluded. He did not give a fuck and nearly all of his inexcusable, highly flawed commentary on other philosophers attests to this. It is, in the end, an unparalleled piece of sophistery.

I have always felt the same. Kant looks so much closer to reality

Right, to a degree. Hegel's contemporaries are very good. If you're interested pick up the artistic and religious essays by people like Goethe and Herder, because they're fantastic.

You're so wrong, because the Phenomenology is the introduction to his system.

You don't need Hume, he's especially mediocre and overrated only due to the fact that he's appealing to later British philosophy, which is crap.

The Greeks are absolutely unmissable especially for Hegel, especially Aristotle (but not the scholastic or empiricist kind), and of course Plato, who Hegel devotes the entire middle section of his History of Philosophy to.

These anons are right, why do people think it's like a skill tree? You're likely to forget everything by Plato by the time you read Plotinus... that completionism is impossible.

Hegel's philosophy of History is where he's at his worst. Read his History of Philosophy instead.

This. But you don't need to be a completionist or to understand every single allusion or perspective. A good commentary such as that by Jean Hyppolite, who in my opinion is unsurpassed in his exposition, or a contemporary scholar such as Houlgate, who I'm more wary of but who tries to be as professional as possible in approach; is everything you need to get working on the Phenomenology.

>"It all went crazy after Kant!!! I don't get it!!!"
Anglo-saxons detected.

>tfw it's another Hegel teaching class on Veeky Forums

When such a board as this feels the need to read Hegel you know at least that the popular spirit is changing. Good to know I'm not the only one scribbling notes all over my dozens of German and Greek philosophy books and commentaries...

Anyone know if that book by Charles Taylor on Hegel is legit? - (Hegel, method, structure, system).

And "Peter Kalkavage-The logic of desire_ an introduction to Hegel's Phenomenology of spirit"?

No it's really bad and unhegelian.

Taylor's book will be a quickly forgotten stepping stone in the history of the anglo-american re-reception of Hegel, but as soon as it was written it was made to be surpassed quickly, and has been.

I'm going through this bad boy. Eat me you uncompletionist cunts

Great companion desu senpai.

>£100

Shit. That boy's serious. That boy's serious about his Hegel.

Yeah you're gonna need the Greeks for that one, buddy.

>the Phenomenology is the introduction to his system

And yet reading it as an introduction will only introduce OP to Hegel-hating. How smart.

I read his HIstory of Philosophy.

Very good writer.

Still afraid to read Phenemology of the SPirit though.