In this lecture/discussion session we tackle the Introduction to a very challenging philosophical work, Georg William Friedrich Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit. This recording is from from my Spring 2013 Introduction to Philosophy class at Marist College.
I lead the students through several of the basic themes discussed in this very dense but short section of Hegel's masterwork, introducing them to some of the key ideas of Hegel's dialectical philosophy, including: the nature of consciousness, knowledge as instrument and medium, idealism as a philosophical stance, what Hegel means by "the Absolute", what a "Science of Experience of Consciousness" consists in, the progress of the Hegelian dialectic, and the dead ends of natural consciousness and skepticism.
Hegel's approach to the phenomenology of consciousness' historical development in this work is both dynamic and systematic. Ultimately, this is to lead to an account of the whole, or the totality of human consciousness.
If you'd like to see more in-depth Hegel videos, check out my Half-Hour Hegel series, where we are going through the ENTIRE Phenomenology of Spirit, paragraph by paragraph -- the series is curated here: http://halfhourhegel.blogspot.com/
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