Your complimentary articles

You’ve read all of your complimentary articles for this month. To have complete access to the thousands of philosophy articles on this site, please

SUBSCRIBE NOW

If you are a subscriber please sign in to your account.

To buy or renew a subscription please visit Subscriptions.

If you are a print subscriber you can contact us to create an online account.

Books

In the Shadow of Hegel

Colin Harper reviews Adorno’s essays on the Master.

The three essays which make up this book date from the late 1950s and early 1960s and they bear the marks of their origin in Adorno’s attempts to teach Hegel’s philosophy at the University of Frankfurt. One of the uniting themes of the book is the peculiar nature of Hegel’s thought as presented in his writings and the particular problems this poses for both its readers and teachers. A central concern throughout is the question of how the philosophy of Hegel should be approached and regarded today.

In ‘Aspects of Hegel’s Philosophy’, the first essay, Adorno recognises the enormous influence of Hegel on later European philosophy. He is rightly sceptical of any attempt to present an ‘appreciation’ of Hegel’s work and of any attempt to separate what is ‘living’ (or ‘useful’, or ‘interesting’) from what is ‘dead’ and obsolete in the Hegelian system purely on the basis of our own concerns.

…