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Introduction

The Phenomenology of Spirit is considered Hegel's first work of mature philosophy. In it he attempts to perform an immanent criticism of various structures of thought. In other words, he will "enter into" various modes of cognition and show that each leads to a contradiction by its own logic. I will discuss the role of the phenomenology within the framework of Hegel's philosophical program and the role set out for itself in the preface and introduction. I will then sketch the structure of the book, before moving on to look at some more concrete examples of the argumentation. I will look at sense certainty, the first "shape of consciousness" discussed and the "master-slave dialectic" one of the later forms. After a detailed account of each of these I will comment on the elements that are common to both these two parts as well as to several others.

The phenomenology in the context of Hegel's philosophical program

Within Hegel's philosophy, the phenomenology was meant to be the introduction. It was to serve as a "ladder" to the position of mature philosophy. Hegel's belief is that the world is rational, available to reason, and that the problems, puzzles and paradoxes that we see in the world are due to faulty forms of thought. The phenomenology was conceived of as a way to dispel these flawed shapes of consciousness. But the phenomenology is not entirely negative. Each discarded form gives rise to a newer form which resolves its inconsistencies. This new form is not without its own flaws which are the subject of the following section of the book. This progression is supposed to be necessary so that, by the end of the Phenomenology, the position reached is on a secure footing. The phenomenology is supposed to provide us with a logical grounding for the position that Hegel argues from in his later works. Essentially the phenomenology is supposed to ground the starting point of Hegel's philosophy proper in certainty. Hegel wanted to justify the view that thought and being as "subject" and "substance" are identical in form. When you read his later works of actual philosophy (e.g. the Science of Logic) you can be sure that you are on solid ground because the phenomenology has justified the criteria for certainty employed.

The aim of the phenomenology

The aim of the phenomenology is to show that various "shapes of consciousness" that might be put forward as a basis of philosophy are flawed. Hegel's wish is to demonstrate in an immanent manner that these forms

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