Required Text
G.W.F. Hegel, The Phenomenology of Spirit, trans. Terry Pinkard, Cambridge UP, 2018

Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit
Open Non-Credit Seminar, Professor Nathan Brown
Winter 2021, Fridays 4:00 - 6:00 pm (online)
contact: nathan.brown11@gmail.com

Along with Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason (1781), G.W.F. Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit (1807) is a foundational text of modern German philosophy. Moving beyond the formalism of Kant’s transcendental method, Hegel offers a genetic and historical account of perception, life, thought, and spirit. Hegel’s dialectical method is essential to understanding the development of Marx’s historical materialism, in the wake of which the Phenomenology remains a crucial text in debates concerning the relation between idealism and materialism, philosophy and history, structure and genesis, spirit and nature, thinking and being. 

This non-credit seminar will offer a step-by-step introduction to Hegel’s Phenomenology. Our goal will be to grasp the conceptual and methodological developments of the text and to situate them in relation to intellectual and political history. The seminar is open to anyone but capped at 30 participants, with preference given to Concordia University graduate students. Each session will begin with an introductory lecture followed by questions, leading to open discussion in the second hour.